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FEMALE WRITERS: 

THOUGHTS ON THEIR PROPER SPHERE, 

AND ON 

THEIR POWERS OF USEFULNESS. 
BY M. A. STODART, 

AUTHOR OP "EVERY DAY DUTIES," 
" HINTS ON READING," &C. 



He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in mucli."- 
" Occupy till I come."— Luke xvt. 10; xix. 13. 



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PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE 

AND SOLD BY L. AND G. SEELEY, 

FLEET STREET, LONDON. 

MDCCCXLII. 



<*£< 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introductory Chapter 1 

II. Mental Faculties of Woman . . .14 

III. Disadvantages op Education . . .26 

IV. Women op Ancient Times . . .38 
V. Considerations on Learning in Women, 

AND ON SOME WOMEN OF LEARNING . . 54 

VI. Poetry and Poetesses 83 

VII. Letter- writing 104 

VIII. Narrative 124 

IX. Writers on Education 142 

X. Writers on Religion 157 

XL Social Disadvantages of Literary Women 177 
XII. Dangers to the Moral and Religious Cha- 
racter 192 



FEMALE WRITERS. 



FEMALE WRITERS, & c . 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

In that most humorous, but deeply affecting pre- 
face, the prologue to the second part of Don 
Quixote, Cervantes remarks, with true Spanish 
gravity and sly irresistible humour, " I know well 
what the temptations of the devil are, and that one 
of the greatest is to put into a man's mind, that he 
can compose and print a book, by which he may 
gain as much fame as money, and as much money 
as fame." Had Cervantes lived in England in 
times present, he would probably have admitted, 
that many persons are equally entitled with his ma- 
le 



2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

levolent adversary to his contemptuous pity, as 
being under this melancholy delusion of the great 
enemy. We entirely agree with him in a sentence 
which follows, that it is no little labour to writ Q a 
book, even when neither money nor fame is the ob- 
ject of the labour. Our object, we frankly avow, 
is very simple. Desirous of entering upon a field 
which has as yet been little trod, of following out 
an interesting train of thought, and giving it per- 
manence and fixedness by developing it on paper, 
it may be that the train of thought thus developed, 
will be interesting and useful to other minds. If 
not, no great harm is done, for it is at least, 
in every body's power to abstain from reading what 
we proceed to write. 

We are well aware that a strong prejudice has 
existed against learned and even against literary 
women. This prejudice is first to be imputed to the 
natural and deeply-rooted selfishness, (with all res- 
pect be it spoken) of poor woman's lord and master. 
It has found vent in the evanescent, but not impo- 
tent form of conversational attacks, rather than in 
the formal treatise and pointed satire. Yet it has 
not been confined to airy syllables. Boileau in 
France, and his friend Moliere, blew some of the 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 6 

loudest blasts that ever resounded through Europe, 
against this monstrous atrocity on the part of 
woman. We refer to them merely as having given 
a palpable expression to ideas which were before 
vaguely floating in public opinion ; not with any 
intention or desire of excuse or refutation. Yet 
oue remark naturally escapes from the pen. Boileau 
was an unmarried man ; how could he for one mo- 
ment be imagined, to comprehend the mind of 
women, who from his very situation, was debarred 
from their intimate friendship ? We refer not merely 
to conjugal friendship, but to the obvious fact that 
a married man has far superior opportunities of 
forming friendships with the high-minded and vir- 
tuous of the opposite sex. Boileau 's satire on 
women is a satire on himself: his quiver is ex- 
hausted, and many of the arrows are pointless. 
As for " Les Femmes Savantes " of Moliere, there 
is but one answer to be given. His learned women 
were not learned : they were merely pretenders to 
learning. Moliere wrote as any man or woman 
of common sense would write, against the vain as- 
sumption of a literary character, and against the 
cant, affectation, pretence, vanity, insincerity, and 
neglect of common duties, ever to be found in such 
R 2 



4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

circumstances. He made use of that most potent of 
all arms, ridicule ; laughing breaks no bones, but 
many who could endure physical pain with fortitude, 
shrink appalled from a sarcastic laugh. It has been 
said by a good judge, that " it is easy to parry an 
argument, but who can withstand a sneer ? " Cer- 
tainly not weak woman, whose situation is more in- 
fluenced by opinion than by law, and whose duty it 
is, in matters of minor importance, to bend, in a cer- 
tain degree, to public opinion. The tocsin had 
sounded ; the invectives of these celebrated French 
writers influenced in some degree, the literature, and 
still more strongly, the state of opinion in our own 
country. The safety of the middle path was for- 
gotten ; there was a retreat far on the other side. 
Women had been the first to help themselves to the 
tree of knowledge ; and it seemed as if now the 
flaming sword of public opinion were employed to 
drive them away from all approach to its vicinity. 
It became the fashion for ladies to know nothing, 
absolutely nothing ; as if mental power were given 
for any purpose rather than to be cultivated, — as 
if the gentle Scotticism of " innocents " as applied to 
idiots, were founded on facts. But so it was : a tide of 
frivolity set in, which threatened to carry all before 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. O 

it; a tide of frivolity, ignorance, helplessness. 
Towards the close of last century, the re-echoings 
of this noted blast had in some degree subsided. 
Poor frightened women raised their heads and began 
to look around them ; just as, in spring, the animals 
which have been in a state of torpor during the 
howling winds of winter, creep forth from their 
holes, and bask in the vivifying sun-beams. Then 
there was indeed a galaxy of bright women ; — 

darkly, deeply, beautifully blue, 

As some one somewhere sings about the sky, 
And I, ye learned ladies, sing of you, 
They say your stockings are so, heaven knows why, 

1 have examined few pairs of that hue, 
Blue as the garters which serenely lie 

Round the patrician left-leg, and adorn, 
The festal midnight, and the levee morn. 

But we are falling among the sneerers again, 
and it is an unhealthy, damp, and rheumatic at- 
mosphere ; it is the Pontine marshes of the mind, 
and the malaria resulting from it is too evident to 
all. Give us, if you will, honest censure, but spare 
us from sneering praise. 

In truth, the enquiry upon which we enter, is in 
itself, of no slight importance. Every human being 
has faculties, powers, and influence, for which he, 



O INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

aye, and she too, will have to give a strict account. 
Let it be conceded, for the sake of argument, that 
women often have, compared with the nobler sex, 
but one intellectual talent ; it is the more incumbent 
upon them then to cultivate it. If they have but 
little, let them do their diligence gladly to improve 
that little. It was not the richly endowed servant 
who drew upon himself the rebuke of idleness ; it 
was he to whom least was entrusted, who went and 
digged in the ground and hid his lord's monev. 
Xo one will, it is hoped, be so stupid as to imagine 
that we confine this principle to intellectual ac- 
quirements and improvement ; the application of 
it to intellectual pursuits is quite justifiable. Not 
that there is at present any want of literary acti- 
vity. On the contrary, almost every body writes ; 
it is a writing age ; women have caught the mania, 
a disease which is most easily caught, but which is 
most difficult to be cured. Every one who really 
reads, and who is not engaged in a laborious profes- 
sion, writes, and many write who do not read ; so that 
in the literary commonwealth as at present existing 
in England, there are actually more writers than rea- 
ders. Go into the society of educated persons ; you 
will probably find one in eight, an author. There 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. / 

would be no particular harm in writing ; it is 
amusing, and in some degree improving, but the 
misfortune is that there must be printing and pub- 
lishing also. 

'Tis something sure to see one's name in print ; 
A book's a book, although, there's nothing in't. 

And thus we go on till the public is inundated with 
crude and childish productions. A good book is 
the pure life-blood of an immortal mind ; the con- 
centrated essence of its most vigorous thoughts and 
subtle reflexions ; but the poor ephemeral produc- 
tions to which we allude, are not the offspring 
of thought in the mind of the author, nor do they 
strike it forth in the mind of the reader. " Ought 
there not always to be an idea in a word ?" says the 
poor simple-minded student in Faust, to the demon 
Mephistophiles. — " Yes, if it be possible," answers 
the false instructor ; " but there is no occcasion to 
torment yourself too much on that head, for when 
ideas are wanting, words come very seasonably to 
supply their place." It is this paucity of ideas, 
this abundance of words, of which, in the present 
state of our literature, we complain. There is a 
poverty in it, a want of reflexion, of thought, of 
imagination, of development of principles, of every 



8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

thing in short, which can make a national literature 
valuable. In the language in which Bacon thought, 
and Shakespeare struck out his wonderful concep- 
tions ; in which Newton pursued his discoveries, 
and Milton embodied his sublime and glorious 
ideas, these things ought not so to be. A strong light, 
it is quite true, is cast upon our path from the lite- 
ture of olden time, but that light tends to make our 
present obscurity more palpable. It is not our part 
to call on men to arouse themselves, and to tread 
in the steps of their fathers ; our views are rather 
confined to those who must ordinarily occupy a 
lower post, and exercise an inferior influence in 
the literary world. Every one in his place and 
order; there are stars over our head, and there are 
flowers under our feet : to some it is given to en- 
lighten ; to others, to soothe and please. We would 
call upon women in general to cultivate their 
minds, and to exercise their powers of thought ; so 
that if any of them should be called upon by cir- 
cumstances to write for the public, there may be 
greater power, and less poverty. There will be a 
reflex influence upon men ; the argument has 
sometimes been urged for the cultivation of the 
lower orders in society, that it will force the upper 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 9 

ones to exert themselves in order to maintain their 
superiority of station, and surely it may fairly be 
applied to the two great divisions of humanity; 
those whose province it is to rule, and those to 
whom it is appointed to obey. 

There is another reason for the importance of 
the enquiry. The literature of a country may be 
considered as the expression of the national mind, 
breathing out from the union of many voices into 
one full symphony. "The man is not without 
the woman, nor the woman without the man in 
the Lord." A full-voiced choir would not be con- 
sidered complete without some female voices, and 
there must always be chasms in a literature where 
women are sedulously excluded from the expression 
of thought and sentiment. We say nothing, far 
be it from us, against attention to domestic duties. 
Home is and ever must be the true sphere for wo- 
man, and her domestic duties her first duties. 
Nothing can alter the position assigned to her in 
Scripture. " I will, therefore," said the Apostle Paul, 
"that the younger women marry, bear children, 
guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary 
to speak reproachfully." And those who so abide 
are, in our judgment, the happiest women. We 



10 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

shall have to return to this again. Perhaps, too. 
this is the post of the greatest usefulness. " Whom 
does your majesty consider to be the most distin- 
guished woman of France ? " said Madame de 
Stael to the Emperor Napoleon. (The anecdote 
appears rather apocryphal, but it is not, on that ac- 
count, less apt for illustration.) "The woman,' 1 
was the surly answer, " who has given to the com- 
monwealth the greatest number of children.'' 
While, however, we recognize the paramount im- 
portance of every-day employments, home and 
fire-side duties, the unobtrusive labours of domes- 
tic life, we feel aud know that there are many 
women who have few or no domestic cares, upon 
whose mind, and still less upon whose tongue and 
pen a padlock cannot be placed. They would say 
like the " high and mighty countess " in Les Plai- 
deurs, " Je ne veux point etre liee/' and truth to 
say, attend who will, or criticise who like, they write 
away. 

And there is one consideration which seems not 
to have been brought forward with sufficient pro- 
minence. Never was there greater scope for the 
literary talents of women than in England in the 
present day. A distinguished female writer has said, 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 1 1 

that under popular governments, where knowledge 
is really cultivated, perhaps it would be natural 
that literature, properly so called, should become the 
share of women, while men should devote themselves 
entirely to the study of the higher branches of phi- 
losophy. We cannot say that our own country 
has attained to this eminence on the hill of science ; 
but certainly we do say that there are at present 
more women than men devoted to literature in 
England. And the reason is a very simple one. In 
the citation from Cervantes, with which this chapter 
opened, two objects are set before us as being 
usually aimed at by authors — money and fame. 
Now fame is a mere word — it is air — " insensible to 
the deaci, and it will not live with the living, because 
detraction will not suffer it." We cannot feed, 
camelion-like, upon air, so alas ! genius must eat, 
drink, live, and condescend to accept remuneration 
for his labours. Then as it regards money, the re_ 
turns for literary labour are notoriously, prover- 
bially scanty.* And as to honour, empty as it is, un- 
less a literary man rise to the highest rank, he is 

* See Babbage on the Economy of Manufactures, for he 
enters into this question fully, and gives practical numerical 
details. 



12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

merely a bookseller's drudge, arid derives no social 
consideration from the exercise of his talents. The 
consequence of this is, that men of powerful minds, 
who might have embraced literature as a profession, 
and risen to the highest ranks in it, enter into 
some other career ; they are to be found in the 
senate, amid the turmoil of political life; at the bar ; 
and, in fact, in all the learned professions. Nature 
abhors a vacuum, and women, with dwarfish men, 
step forward to supply the gap. The present 
state of literature in England evidences the truth 
of these observations. 

Under these impressions, we will consider first 
the mental powers of women as qualified to act on 
others. In the second place, we will endeavour to 
review the various departments of literature, and 
consider some of the females who have therein dis- 
tinguished themselves. We are far from intending 
to speak of all the celebrated female writers that 
have ever lived ; that would be merely compiling 
a biographical dictionary ; our endeavour would 
rather be so to select facts as to add weight to ar- 
gument, and to give illustration to principles. We 
will intersperse practical remarks as to the channels 
into which the powers of women may most ad van- 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 13 

tageously be directed, and point out the dangers to 
which literary celebrity exposes them. 

A critic of ancient times warns authors not to 
promise too much in their prefaee, lest out of the 
mountain should creep forth a mouse. We re- 
member the warning, and hasten on to the body of 
the work. 



II. 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

This ground has been so often trod, that it really 
seems that the less we say upon the subject the 
better. Mary Wolstonecraft, and before hei^ 
Mistress Mary Astell, the Madonella of the Tat- 
ler, were strenuous advocates for the mental equa- 
lity of the sexes. It is difficult to maintain this 
theory without aiming a presumptuous blow at that 
wisdom which assigned to man to rule, to woman 
to obey. We hold with Palev that, the sexes are 
" equal in rights," (that is in all essential rights,) 
" nearly equal in faculties ; " and with Leighton also, 
that females are " ordinarily the weaker." 

But the subject cannot be thus summarily dis- 
missed, considering it as we do for a practical end. 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 15 

In the first place the enquiry presents itself, in 
what does the inferiority of woman consist ? How 
does it betray itself ? 

One word, however, before answering this ques- 
tion. In one respect the sexes are perfectly equal ; 
they are equally endowed for their respective spheres 
of action. Man is fitted for the rough struggles of 
public life ; woman for the calm and dignified re- 
pose, the gentle duties of private life. This fitness 
of means to an end, this beautiful adaptation to 
circumstances, must carefully be borne in mind, 
or else each will be disposed to say to the Supreme 
Ruler of the universe, " Why hast thou made me 
thus ?" The same wisdom that taught the lion to 
prowl in the midnight forest, and the little birds to 
sing among the branches, that taught the fishes to 
glide in deep waters, and the mole to burrow under 
ground, has assigned to woman her post, and 
richly, most richly endowed her for fulfilling its 
duties. The Jewish men thank God daily in their 
synagogue, because He has made them men, while 
the response of the women is thankfulness that 
He has made them according to his will. Nor 
has this lowering idea been altogether unknown 
among Christian divines. "I reverence a good 



16 MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

woman," said a late excellent minister, "but I do 
not hold her in the same rank as a good man." 
Surely, surely this is not according to the words 
of the Apostle, that "in Christ Jesus, there is 
male nor female." 

As it regards the difference of faculties between 
the two sexes, the difference consists, we apprehend, 
not in kind but in degree. The same powers will 
be found to exist in the female as in the male mind, 
but weaker, feebler, fainter. Some distinctive dif- 
ferences, just sufficient to characterize the two sexes, 
will be found to prevail, and these will be noticed 
as we proceed. It is important however, to bear 
in mind the truth just laid down, for it has been 
sometimes controverted, and a late writer goes so 
far as to say, that the genuine faculty of abstrac- 
tion is, — some few instances excepted, — not to be 
found in the female mind. If this writer intend 
by the word abstraction the same faculty as Locke 
does, (for in these metaphysical enquiries, it is 
necessary to be very guarded,) he is reducing 
women to a level with brutes ; since Locke makes 
abstraction the faculty which distinguishes man 
from the lower animals. 
C Not only are the intellects of women in general 






MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 17 

weaker, but their appetites are also ; while their af- 
fections, by that beautiful principle of compensation 
>which runs throughout creation, are stronger. Of 
course we speak of the aggregate of men and wo- 
men ; there are women in this day, as there were 
in the battle of Salamis, who act like men ; and 
there are men, to their shame be it spoken, who 
are no better than silly women. It is necessary 
to put the adjunct of silly ; for, when a man dis- 
places himself by frivolity and folly from his rank 
in the creation, he does not take his standing with 
the excellent of the subordinate sex, but with quite 
the lower members. 

We would proceed to consider more particularly 
the peculiar features of the female mind, but we 
are conscious of the difficulty and delicacy of the task. 
We know, even as it regards the external appear- 
ance, that a much higher degree of skill is requi- 
site to delineate the delicate features, and to catch 
the subdued and evanescent expression of woman, 
than is required for expressing on canvass the 
strongly marked lines and bolder countenance of 
man ; and for this reason, since the death of Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, few or none, even of our highest 
metropolitan artists, have succeeded with the oil 
c 



18 MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

portraits of ladies. The portraiture of the female 
mind is not less difficult. A pencil dipt in the 
rainbow-hues should be the instrument, and the 
clouds of heaven the material for receiving the de- 
lineation. Indeed the first peculiarity that strikes 
us, is the extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of its 
organization. The iEolian-harp which trembles 
and vibrates at every breath of wind ; the mimosa 
leaf which shrinks from the gentlest touch, are but 
faint emblems of a sensitive and refined woman. 
This sensitiveness, this delicacy, are increased by 
civilization and refinement ; but we wish to be un- 
derstood as speaking of the moral world ; for forti- 
tude in bearing physical pain is a peculiar attribute, 
through the mercy of a bountiful Creator, of timid 
and shrinking woman. In man, civilization in- 
creases the irritability to pain, and it is a well 
known medical fact, that labouring men, and those 
whose nerves have been hardened by exposure to 
the roughnesses of life, bear surgical operations bet- 
ter than those in a higher sphere. It is a cause 
for great thankfulness that the converse of the fact 
does not take place with woman ; but that ' the ten- 
der and delicate woman who would not adventure 
to set the sole of her foot to the ground for delicacy 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 19 

and tenderness/ is often to be found in the hour of 
pain and of peril, calm, patient, resigned, nay, 
cheerful ; active courage being the acknowledged 
attribute of man ; passive fortitude that of woman. 

The sensitive organization to which we have just 
referred, which renders woman so frail and so in- 
teresting, is, we freely acknowledge, often exag- 
gerated through female vanity, so as to become a 
source of morbid suffering both to the individual 
and her friends. We have no wish to foster ner- 
vousness and hysteria ; our efforts would rather be 
directed to strengthen the female mind, and to call 
forth power and reflexion. In fact, and this forms 
the second peculiarity which we would notice, 
the passive principle is much stronger in the female 
mind than the active one. There is a greater sus- 
ceptibility to impressions than power of directing 
judgment; woman is more quick to feel than ca- 
pable of directing and controlling feeling. In her 
case everything that calls forth emotion without 
stimulating to action must be bad, as it strengthens 
a propensity already sufficiently strong. 

We go forward to a third characteristic; keen 
and exquisite tact. Men reason, add link to link, and 
feel their way to the end of a long chain, at which 



20 MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

they often find their companions, swift like Atalanta, 
already arrived by the exercise of this instinctive 
penetration ; a faculty which sometimes seem to 
have something of the nature of intuition. It is 
a valuable gift, and aided by strong affection, is 
often exercised with singular power in the moral 
world. It enables its possessor alike to penetrate 
into the bosom-feelings of the more powerful fellow 
creature with whom her earthly destiny is united, 
and to read with exactness the half-formed thoughts 
of the helpless infant who looks up to her for pro- 
tection. 

Another peculiarity is, that there is in woman 
less separation between the moral and the mental 
faculties. "A woman's head," says Coleridge, 
" is usually over ears in her heart. A man with a 
bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong 
head ; but a corrupt woman is lost for ever." The 
words of Madame de Stael respecting herself, " Je 
ne puis separermes idees de mes sentiments," tally 
with this observation. 

Facility in the association of ideas is another 
point that demands our attention. It is mentioned 
by no less a writer than Dugald Stewart, as being 
greater in women than in men, and he thinks that 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 21 

this is probably to be attributed to early education. 
On this point we do not presume to give a verdict ; 
we are examining facts, and we do not pretend to 
trace causes. '■ Hence," says this elegant writer, 
" the liveliness of their fancy, and the superiority 
they possess in epistolary writing, and in those 
kinds of poetry, in which the principal recommen- 
dations are ease of thought and expression. Hence, 
too, the facility with which they contract, or lose 
habits, and accommodate their minds to new situ- 
ations ; and, I may add, the disposition they have 
to that species of superstition which is founded on 
accidental combinations of circumstances." 

There are some other traits connected with those 
which have been already enumerated, and which are 
in some degree dependent upon them. Among these, 
(for we would be as brief as possible,) are closeness 
of observation and the power of entering into mi- 
nute details. The sphere is confined, and the view is 
microscopic. Quickness of sympathy is another, 
and this eminently fits women for the duties of their 
assigned post. We must not pass over elegance of 
taste, which is closely connected with their facility 
in associating ideas ; they perceive, approve, reject, 
while man is coldly reasoning. This elegance of 



22 MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

taste is a remarkable peculiarity. No wonder that 
in the festal and gallant tournaments of old, when 
throngs of knights held high triumphs, there were 
always 

" Stores of ladies whose bright eyes, 
Rained influence, and judged the prize 
Of wit or arras." 

The days of chivalry are past, hut women still 
hold a similar office with regard to the productions 
of art. Endowed with polished taste, but destitute 
in general of the creative power of high imagina- 
tion, they are more fitted for feeling and judging 
the productions of other minds, than of executing 
themselves, works in the higher department of art. 
But they fulfil in this respect their vocation ; they 
are found at the commencement, and the close ; 
they frequently inspire the leading sentiment, and 
they appreciate its expression. 

So many advantages must have their counter- 
balance, and as in every thing else in this imperfect 
state, the evil appears closely intertwined with what 
is good. The tares are growing among the wheat. 
If the delicacy of organization to which we first 
referred renders woman peculiarly susceptible to im- 
pressions, it also incapacitates her for close attention 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 23 

and patient research. A true bee of Parnassus, or 
perhaps we might say butterfly, she flutters from 
flower to flower, rejoicing in the aerial flight, but 
unable to rest for a long time, even on the loveliest. 
This peculiarity has been felt by women of the 
strongest minds. Madame de Stael, to whom we 
before referred for exemplification, and who, as one 
of the most nobly endowed women that ever lived, 
may with fairness be brought forward, is recorded by 
her own cousin, as notbeing capable of long continued 
attention to one subject; it always fatigued her. 
We may observe this in her writings ; there is a 
series of perceptions of truths breaking over her 
wonderful mind ; brilliant, rapid, electrifying ; but 
there is not the patient working out of one idea 
under a gradually increasing light. In truth, in 
ordinary life, man will, like Sinbad the sailor, 
grope for light to the extremity of a long cavern ; 
while poor weak woman, incapable of the exertion, 
must content herself with doing her best by aid 
of the scattered rays which break through the 
crevices. 

We are quite ready to allow that there is a 
greater energy of character in men. The force of 
the will is much stronger. There is greater power, 



24 MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 

more determination. How closely this is connected 
with selfishness, and how often misapplied to self- 
seeking and self-pleasing, we need not now stop to 
consider. But this defect, if, considering woman's 
position, defect it be, though it may disqualify her 
for vigorous action, renders her more fitted for 
humble submission. Selfish people are peculiarly 
unfitted for friendship ; and it is well for the comfort 
of man, that his companion is more gentle and 
yielding than himself. 

The surprising quickness with which women arrive 
at conclusions which are frequently quite correct, 
has been noticed. An obvious evil is connected with 
it ; women are seldom to be found among those that 
can render a reason. They depend too much upon 
this faculty of tact ; they do not sufficiently reason, 
nor weigh reasons. Shakespeare knew woman 
thoroughly, and he saw and felt this failing. " A 
woman's reason,'' says one of his female charac- 
ters, i( Because it is so." When women know and 
clearly see that they are in the right, they often do 
not know why they are right. It is time to hasten to 
a conclusion, for alas ! the last trait of mental cha- 
racter has been more injurious to poor woman's 
peace and safety than all besides. It has done 



MENTAL FACULTIES OF WOMAN. 25 

much mischief in the world, and will probably 
be productive of much more. 

One charge we fully expect to be brought against 
us, that this estimate of the faculties of the female 
mind is too favourable ; the valuation too high. 
The old fable of the lion looking at the picture 
occurs to our recollection ; and women, in like 
manner, have been too often delineated by those 
whose interest it was to keep them in subjection, 
and who aimed at this end by exaggerated accounts 
of their weakness. This selfishness has brought 
with it its own punishment ; if women have been 
the sufferers, men, as was just, have been the 
greater losers. 



III. 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 

The defects, the mistakes of female education 
would fill a volume, and the endeavour must be to 
compress what is most material, and what most 
immediately bears upon the subject of this work, into 
a brief chapter. We will consider, in as short a 
space as possible, what are the chief obstacles, in 
early training, to the developement of intellectual 
power, especially the developement of those facul- 
ties which most powerfully influence others. 

In the first place, perhaps, women are too much 
under the influence of one another for the improve- 
ment of the higher faculties of the mind. When 
the hatred of Licinius, the partner of Constantine 
the Great in the East, first broke forth against the 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 27 

Christian name, and he sought, with politic zeal, to 
diminish the resources of Christians, and to render 
them, as philosophic pride vainly endeavoured to 
represent them, a most mean, contemptible, ig- 
norant set of people, this point was not overlooked. 
Women were forbidden, by an imperial edict, to 
attend the public ministry of men, and they were 
commanded to furnish themselves with teachers of 
their own sex. We would not, however, be mis- 
understood. We simply express our conviction 
that the loftier mind of man, and his more en- 
larged views, have a most beneficial influence on 
the young female mind in calling forth and de- 
veloping its powers ; in the same way as habitual 
intercourse with ladies has an evident influence in 
softening the roughnesses of boys, and in polishing 
their manners. But as for entire education, a man 
can no more educate a woman properly than a 
woman can educate a man. Queen Elizabeth will 
furnish a notable example of the former part of this 
proposition, the only part which requires to be 
illustrated here. Brought up among men and 
educated by them, her powerful mind evinced a 
vigour seldom to be met with in either sex ; a vigour 
which fitted her most admirably for the art of go- 



28 DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 

verning, and rendered her one of the greatest so- 
vereigns that any country has ever known ; but in 
the graces and elegances of her sex she was defi- 
cient. The masculine powers of her nature tri- 
umphed ; the woman failed. Had Anne Boleyn 
been permitted to watch over the childhood, and 
influence the youth of her daughter, it is difficult 
to say how far the character of Elizabeth, (pre- 
serving as she did, to her latest years, a tender re- 
membrance of her mother,) might have been mo- 
dified. The undue preponderance of gentle graces 
over the firmer and more enduring qualities of heart 
and mind, is the fault that we ordinarily see ex- 
emplified. 

But we have graver charges than this. The spi- 
rit which animates the education of women, is a ser- 
vile spirit. How nobly does Dr. C banning, in 
his discourse against slavery, shew that man cannot 
bend to man, as man, without being degraded bv 
it ! Alas ! for poor woman, this servile, degrading 
spirit tinctures the whole course of her training. 
We are not reasoning against submission ; again 
and again, at the risk of being accused of repetition, 
we would cast the imputation from us. We recog- 
nize the authority of scripture ; we know that woman 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 29 

is bound to obey, but we argue, let tbe spirit of the 
injunction be carried out ; the obedience of woman 
is not to be a slavish, earthly feeling, which degrades 
and represses ; but a religious principle, which 
ennobles and stimulates. It is this slavish, earthly 
feeling, which runs through the whole course of 
woman's training ; it is sometimes expressed in 
words, but it is more effectually and constantly 
manifested in deeds. By words as well as deeds, 
is a girl often instructed from her cradle, that her 
object in life is to be useful and agreeable to some 
individual of the opposite sex, and that to be ad- 
vantageously married is the grand object of her 
education. There are some errors which have so 
wide and general an influence that they are felt 
even upon truth, and this grand error is one of 
that class. Imbue a mind thoroughly with one 
false view as to life, and then, how many truths are 
seen as in a mirror darkly, faintly ! nay more, the 
mirror does not always give a correct reflexion ; it 
is either convex or concave, and they are distorted 
accordingly. Why not teach woman fearlessly the 
great truth that she is a creature of God, and will 
have to give account at his tribunal for the employ- 
ment of all her talents ? How can she ever rise to 



30 DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 

the full dignity of an immortal being, — how can the 
energies of her mind ever be adequately developed, 
when she is taught systematically to believe that 
one half of the human species was created for the 
comfort, the enjoyment, the amusement, if you 
will, of the other half, and when she is directed to 
bend the powers of her mind before the will of a 
fellow-mortal, irrespective of higher principles ? 
The spirit of the Christian religion is truly a spirit 
of freedom, and where it influences education, 
higher principles are perceived and developed than 
the miserable bondage of this world.* 

But there is another evil spirit to combat with in 
education, and one which exercises important 

* The slavish principle against which we are arguing, is 
rather too evident in the picture which Milton gives of our 
first parents. As a republican, his ideas of domestic liberty 
were not very great, and the inferiority of Eve is most sedu- 
lously and sternly maintained. At the first introduction of 
Adam and Eve, we are informed that they were created, 
" He for God only, she for God in him/' 
In the same spirit, we soon after find Eve thus addressing 
Adam. 

"0 thou for whom 
And from whom I was formed, flesh of thy flesh, 
And ivithout icho?n am to no end, my guide 
And head ! " 
And further on, for we need hardly multiply instances, 






DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 31 

powers ; viz, the undue weight which is given to 
opinion. What will people think ? what will peo- 
ple say ? is so continually repeated, that at last the 
mind forgets to look above human opinion, and 
remains inert in this lower atmosphere. The grand 
principles of right and wrong are forgotten, in the 
low considerations as to what is esteemed among 
men. Women are thus deprived of their moral 
existence, for that cannot be called real moral exis- 
tence, where the standard for excellence is found 
only in the varying and capricious changes of other 
men's minds. Not that it would be by any means 
desirable to free women altogether from the chain of 
opinion. A due regard to it in man and woman is 
necessary, is scriptural. " Provide things honest 

" My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 

Unargued I obey : so God ordains ; 

God is thy lav), thou mine ; to know no more 

Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise." 

It will hardly be believed, after these free animadversions on 
our immortal bard, that we would subscribe heart and mind 
to every word that Katharine says in the closing scene of the 
" Taming of the Shrew," when she tells the headstrong women, 

" What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. 1 ' 

Only let the duty towards man be considered as a part of 
the duty towards God, for when separated, it is but a shivered 
and miserable fragment. 



32 DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 

in the sight of all men." "Abstain from all ap- 
pearance of evil." " Let not your good be evil 
spoken of." " A good name is rather to be chosen 
than great riches.'' " Whatsoever things are of 
good report, think on these things." Such are some 
of the passages which present themselves at once 
to the memory ; but let the full sense of Scripture 
be elicited. The same Apostle who so plainly in- 
culcates a proper regard to human opinion, says of 
himself, " With me, it is a very small thing to be 
judged of you, or of man's judgment, yea, I judge 
not mine own self." And there are some of whom 
it is expressly recorded, that even after their un- 
derstandings were convinced that Jesus was the 
Messiah, yet " they confessed him not, lest they 
should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved 
the praise of men more than the praise of God.'" 

The right view of the case, probably is, that de- 
ference to opinion is useful as a subordinate 
barrier ; but it must at all limes be a most danger- 
ous incentive. And besides, how can those rise to 
any just and liberal views, who are taught always 
to inspect actions not by their own eyes, but by the 
eyes of others ? 

These two evil principles in woman's education 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 33 

appear to us the most important, because they are 
the most influential on her moral training. We 
might say something, as it regards her mental de- 
velopement, on the frivolity of the employments 
allotted to her, during the time that she is under 
tutors and governesses. Compare in number, weight, 
and value the ideas which circle through the head 
of a boy between the age of twelve and eighteen, 
the most important period for mental development, 
and those which pass through the mind, or rather 
before the mental eye of a girl at the same impor- 
tant period ; and the astonishment will only be, that 
with the confessedly inferior faculties of woman, 
the disparity is not greater. 

This however, is not our only, nor even our 
greatest quarrel with the plans of female instruc- 
tion. That the time is wasted in trifles, is bad ; 
that the mind itself lies all the while unemployed 
and inert, is worse. The calling forth of the powers 
of the mind ; the progressive, and what is even more 
important, the harmonious cultivation of the facul- 
ties is seldom thought of, still more seldom at- 
tempted. And thus, defects which might have been 
counteracted, become positive evils ; powers which 
might have been usefully employed, run to waste. 

D 



34 DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 

And be it remembered that the consequences of 
neglect, are not merely negative. God will not 
have his own gifts abused with impunity. Tney 
were given for a high and holy end, and some end 
they will answer. The vine, which under proper 
culture, might have produced abundant clusters of 
goodly grapes, but which spends its strength in 
straggling luxuriance, impeding the path and ob- 
structing the prospect, is but a faint emblem of the 
wasted and unemployed energies of the human 
being who is even most sparingly endowed. 

The comparative shortness of the time devoted 
to the mental culture of woman, might form another 
subject for animadversion. We are quite aware 
that the female mind attains maturity at an earlier 
period of life, giving therein another evidence of 
inferiority. The mushroom springs up in a night, 
and withers beneath the next noon-tide sun, while 
the oak is a century in attaining its full growth, 
but a century more may pass over it without im- 
pairing its vigour. We are most willing to con- 
cede all that can reasonably be expected, and we 
contend, with the greater earnestness, that were a 
longer time devoted to the mental culture of the 
weaker sex, the benefit would be felt by the species. 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 35 

Examine together a boy and girl at fifteen; the 
advantage for quickness, and even knowledge, will 
sometimes be on the side of the girl. Give the 
youth a college education, or even initiate him into 
some business requiring the exercise of mind ; and 
then repeat the comparison at five and twenty, and 
unless the young man be an absolute idiot, no one 
can doubt the result. 

Poor unfortunate woman has scarcely fair play. 
This short course of study, in which something is 
learned, something guessed at, and much over- 
looked, has a bad effect on the mind. There is a 
want of system, a want of expansiveness. For lack 
of knowing more, nothing is known well. It is 
felt in those women who devote themselves to lite- 
rary pursuits. Scores begin to write before they 
have learned to read to advantage. They acquire 
by practice a certain facility in expressing them- 
selves, but they are destitute of resources, and their 
writings are nothing more than the ringing of 
changes on a very limited, number of ideas. 

It seems hardly necessary to observe that those 
women who really do enter on a literary career, 
ought to go through a more solid as well as exten- 
sive course of study, than those who are to be con- 
D 2 



36 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 



fined to the duties of domestic life. We fancy we 
see the rising smile. Let no one mistake us. We 
have no desire that the goodly company of female 
authors should be increased ; we have an anxious 
desire that their resources for real usefulness should 
he extended. Of course all literary efforts are 
valueless that are not directed to the glory of God, 
and more or less directly employed in the spread 
of his holy truth ; but there are women among us 
who " labour in the Lord/' yea, who " labour much 
in the Lord," and it is with a peculiar regard to 
them that our closing observations are made. It is 
from a strong desire to see talent, that most precious 
gift of God, employed with greater effect and force 
in his service, that this enquiry has been pursued. 

We would strongly recommend to all literary 
women the systematic study of the Latin language, 
not only as affording a clear and precise view of 
the nature of the structure of language, but as 
actually giving the real meaning of a very large 
number of words in our own. The style of a per- 
son well acquainted with the Latin classics will 
always be found in force and richness far to surpass 
that of the mere modern linguist; and in truth, 
where there is au entire ignorance of Latin, ludi- 



DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. 37 

crous phrases in the shape of broken metaphors 
frequently occur. Sufficient knowledge of Greek 
for the New Testament, will also be found a most 
desirable acquirement. Truth lies on the surface, 
but when there is no possibility of verifying the real 
meaning of a passage, texts are frequently mis- 
quoted and mis-applied. 

We would add to these the advantage of some 
logic. Women are bad reasoners, and often seem 
hardly able to draw an inference, much less to con- 
duct a chain of reasoning. They have no idea of 
method, of arranging facts in the most lucid order, 
and of drawing from them right conclusions. Their 
thoughts are all in confusion and perplexity ; and 
we have the words of one of our deepest divines, 
that " it is unpardonable for a man to lay his 
thoughts before others, when he is conscious that 
he himself does not know whereabouts he is, or 
how the matter before him stands. It is coming 
abroad in a disorder, which he ought to be dissatis- 
fied to find himself in at home." 

The observance of this course of study by 
female writers, would often very much delay, and 
even diminish, the productions of their pens; and 
perhaps this would not be one of the least beneficial 
of its effects. 



IV. 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 

It is necessary to glance at the position of women 
in ancient times, but the consideration need not delay 
us long. In ancient Greece, women enjoyed few 
social advantages. Sparta was perhaps less harsh 
and severe in this respect than the other states of 
Greece ; but Sparta, from the very nature of its social 
institutions, was little likely to develope mental cha- 
racter. The Grecian women lived secluded in their 
apartments, and were not admitted to the entertain- 
ments at which their husbands, fathers, and brothers 
were regaling. Society as it exists among us was 
altogether unknown. Less polished in this respect 
than the ancient Egyptians, the effect was felt on 
the manners of the Greeks, their morals, and even 
on their literature. Beautiful as their literature is, 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 39 

majestic in its exquisite simplicity, and resplen- 
dent with the graces of poetic imagination, it has 
one chasm, and a female may be permitted to ob- 
serve that chasm with a quick and a keen eye. The 
peculiar character of woman is undeveloped; her 
real influence is unknown ; the character of her 
mind is not understood. It may be laid down as 
an axiom founded on the remarkable words of the 
Apostle in I Cor. xi. 11, that where woman is de- 
graded below her just level, the powers of man, 
intellectual as well as moral, are not fully de- 
veloped. 

It will be objected that there were some women 
of spirit and talent in ancient Greece. Yes, there 
was a woman, if woman that being could be called, 
whose maternal feelings were so crushed and trampled 
on, as to leave her at liberty to tell her warrior son 
as she gave him his shield for battle, to return with 
it, or to return upon it. It may be allowable to 
rejoice that we are not Spartans, in order to pre- 
serve some sentiment of humanity. There was 
another, perhaps a gentler and a nobler spirit, who 
expressed her satisfaction, when her son was disap- 
pointed in a popular election, that the city contained 
three hundred better men than he. 



40 WOMEN OP ANCIENT TIMES. 

The traces of woman's light step are soon effaced 
from the earth ; yet notwithstanding the disadvan- 
tages lately pointed out, some faint marks of her 
existence in ancient Greece yet remain. There is 
the burning Sappho, and her poetry, from which 
Longinus, the most famous critic of antiquity, has 
not disdained to select a specimen of sublimity.* 
Then Corinna, the renowned Corinna, superior 
to Sappho in personal advantages, as being the 
most beautiful woman of her age, and endowed 
with high powers of poetry, if her beauty did not 
plead for her ; since in no less than five trials, she 
vanquished the illustrious poet Pindar. Nor did 
she stand alone in her age ; for she was instructed 
in the art of versification by a woman. To revert 
for one moment to earlier times ; amid the varied 
conjectures and theories respecting the origin and 
compilation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, we need 
not forget that one story goes, that much was copied 
from the poems preserved at Memphis, by Phan- 
tasia, an Egyptian woman. There was the too 
celebrated Aspasia. We cite her now simply with 
respect to her talents, and the abstraction may for 

* Longini de Subl. Sect. x. 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 41 

once be made. That wit and eloquence could not 
be of a common description, which captivated 
Pericles, fascinated the grave philosopher Socrates, 
and influenced for some time the administration of 
Athens. Perhaps it was the philosophic discourses 
of Socrates which led her to dispute the existence 
of the imaginary gods : but the fact of the accusa- 
tion's having been made, and the trouble which 
Pericles had to obtain her acquittal, evidence that 
her mind was powerful and inquisitive. We are 
almost ashamed of writing so much respecting a 
courtezan. We turn willingly to ancient Rome, 
where the existence of women was more pronounced, 
and their social influence more felt. 

There are probably no literary remains of the 
early Roman women.* Yet with the wife and 
mother of the noble but misguided Coriolanus be- 
fore our eyes, especially as they stand vividly em- 
bodied before us in our own Shakespeare, we can- 
not but have a high idea of the sense and spirit of 
the Roman ladies. Of course we do not attribute 
to Volumnia the beautiful speech which Plutarch 
puts into her mouth, as we know the license claimed 

* It is said some of the letters of Cornelia, mother of the 
Gracchi, have been preserved. 



42 WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 

in this respect by the ancient historians ; and after 
all, with our knowledge of the defects and imper- 
fections of the early history of Rome, we do not 
vouch for the truth of any part of the story. The 
story of another noble lady is so beautiful that we 
would fain hope that it is true; we refer to the 
answer of Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Afri- 
canus, the mother of the Gracchi, to a Campanian 
lady, who had with eager ostentation been display- 
ing her jewels, and requested in return to see those 
of Cornelia. How truly the answer of the noble 
lady embodied the high emotions of an affectionate 
mother's heart ! She introduced her two sons, say- 
ing *« These, lady, are my jewels." The word was 
worth a volume, and a commentary upon it might 
be expanded into one. 

Various bright names of females present them- 
selves in the records of Roman life. We remem- 
ber Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, the wife of Do- 
labella, whose untimely death her illustrious father 
so passionately deplores, recounting her accomplish- 
ments, and sorrowing indeed as one without hope. 
Glorious indeed was that gospel which brought life 
and immortality to light, and which gilds the death- 
bed of the humblest believer in Christ with a ra- 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 43 

diant hope unknown to the wisest of the heathen ! 
There was Portia, the daughter of Cato of Utica, 
the wife of Brutus ; who, to prove herself worthy of 
her husband's confidence, inflicted on herself a deep 
wound, and whom Brutus in his last adieux eulo- 
gized as uniting the masculine virtues of man with 
all the graces of the feebler sex. We adduce her 
as an example of strength of mind and fortitude ; 
we remember her suicidal death, and shudder at the 
darkness of paganism. Hortensia, the daughter of 
Hortensius the orator, must have possessed con- 
siderable powers of eloquence, if Appian has not 
himself composed the speech which he professes 
to preserve. We must not pass over Fulvia the 
wife of Antony, who, according to Plutarch, was 
a lady capable of advising a magistrate, and ruling 
the general of an army ; but who is better known to 
us as having feasted her eyes upon the blood - 
streaming head of Cicero, and pierced the tongue 
with a bodkin. The name of Mark Antony na- 
turally recals to us that of his Egyptian spouse,* 
of whom, in his prophetic description of the battle 
of Actium, Virgil speaks in four words as a spe- 

* Sequiturque, nefas ! iEgyptia conjux. iEneid. lib. viii. 
v. 690. 



44 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 



cies of abomination. The generosity of Cleopa- 
tra's rival and Virgil's patroness, Octavia, sister of 
Augustus, might have had some influence on the 
poet's judgment, independently of the ordinary pre- 
judices of the Roman people. Far be it from us to 
take upon us the defence of Cleopatra, that u rare 
Egyptian," most rare in her accomplishment and 
fascinations; that ft foul Egyptian,'' most foul in 
her treachery, her lasciviousness, and her cruelty. 
We naturally think of Shakspeare; for none of his 
characters, drawn from ancient history, is embodied 
with more skill and spirit. We seem, in reading 
his surpassing pages, to live with the Egyptian 
queen, and we almost believe the parting words, 
which he puts into her mouth, 

" I am fire and air, my other elements 
I give to baser life." 

Cleopatra was a very woman, but a woman of 
extraordinary talent. It was not so much her 
beauty, we learn from Plutarch, which fascinated 
successively the two masters of the world, as her 
wit, her grace, and her wonderful variety of accom- 
plishments. Proteus-like, she seems to have been 
capable of transforming herself into any form, of 
conversing on all topics, of assuming any humour, 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 45 

grave or gay, and of being whatever seemed most 
likely to please the fancy of the moment. Her voice 
was peculiarly melodious, a charm which has not 
escaped the notice of Shakspeare, when he makes 
her enquire with such interest respecting the voice 
of her rival Octavia. She spoke a variety of lan- 
guages, an accompaniment and evidence of her 
versatility of mind, as well as a source of varied 
power : she is recorded to have been capable of 
giving audience without an interpreter to ambassa- 
dors from seven different nations. We have said 
enough ; what might such a nobly-endowed woman 
have accomplished, and to what low and grovelling 
ends were all her powers prostituted ! Octavia, the 
gentle, domestic, virtuous Octavia, commands our 
respect by the purity of her conduct, and our sym- 
pathy by her heart-rending sorrows. She seems 
to have been one of the best specimens of the dig- 
nified Roman matron, and she possesssed heart and 
feeling also. It was she who mourned with such 
deep soitow over the untimely death of her accom- 
plished son, Marcellus, and who fainted away on 
hearing the climax, (" Tu Marcellus ens/') of the 
beautiful eulogium on that lamented youth in the 
iEneid. We have no evidence of the powers of 



46 WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 

mind of Octavia, but let that pass. There are 
some other ladies of the Augustan family who de- 
mand our attention ; Livia, for instance, who ex- 
ercised unbounded influence over the mind of Au- 
gustus by the gentle arts of persuasion and submis- 
sion. The dying words of Augustus, " Livia, be 
mindful of our union, and farewell," are a beautiful 
testimony to her conjugal tenderness. Another 
point relative to the ladies of the Augustan family 
is so deserving of notice, that it cannot be passed by. 
It is expressly recorded by the historian of the 
Twelve Caesars, that Augustus never willingly wore 
any dress excepting what was the work of his wife, 
his sister, his daughter, or his grand-children ; and 
the care of the imperial master of the world to 
have his grand-daughters instructed in the useful 
domestic arts has not escaped the notice of the his- 
torian. It is not irrelevant to remark, that in earlier 
ages, Alexander tells the mother and wife of Darius, 
— in order to palliate what they considered an insult, 
— that the garments which he then wore, were the 
work of his own mother and his sister. One of the 
grand-daughters of Augustus, the high-minded 
Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, was famous for 
other accomplishments, than the simple domestic 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 47 

arts, in which she had been so carefully" trained. 
We find her the companion of her heroic husband, 
sharing his dangers and fatigues, encouraging the 
soldiers, fulfilling in short the duties of a general, 
and honoured, after her husband's death, with the 
hatred of the tyrant Tiberius. Proud, haughty, 
unconquerable, ambition was her ruling passion, 
and in her eagerness after sovereignty, feminine 
weaknesses were laid aside. The name of A grip - 
pina is still more familiar to our ears by the ta- 
lents and crimes of the daughter of Germanicus, 
the mother of Nero. How often, in reviewing 
these heathen women, has the reflexion arisen, that 
mental power was but the instrument for crime ; 
and superiority of talent afforded strength to climb 
to a higher pinnacle of wickedness ! 

There was one woman of that time, the reign of — 
— Claudius, who claims our admiration by her con- 
jugal heroism. Abhorring as we do, under the 
light of Christian truth, the horrible crime of sui- 
cide, when did the self-devotion of woman ever 
speak in clearer accents, than when Arria plunged 
the dagger into her bosom, and presenting it to 
her hesitating husband, said with a smile, " My 
dear Paetus, it is not painful ? " 



48 WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 

The character of Cleopatra has been brought for- 
ward ; it is not allowable to pass unnoticed the name 
of her descendant, Zenobia, the far-famed queen of 
Palmyra, who, in the language of the historian of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, " equalled 
her ancestor Cleopatra in beauty, and far surpassed 
her in chastity and valour." Her attainments in 
languages were considerable ; she had drawn up 
for her own use a compendium of oriental history, 
and compared the beauties of Homer and Plato 
under the instruction of Longinus. She defended 
her country against the Roman emperor with the 
courage of a man, but alas ! for her fame and her 
peace of mind, with more than woman's we;, 
she betrayed her friend. 

In the annals of the Roman empire, it is remark- 
able that there are scarcely any females distin- 
guished for poetical talent. Sulpicia, who lived in 
the time of Domitian, appears to have been the 
first poetess; indeed the only one of any note. 
She is said to have written much, and particularly 
to have excelled in satire. She could not have 
been a woman of mean talents ; but her poem on 
conjugal love, so highly praised by Martial, in one 
of his epigrams, is unfortunately no longer extant. 






WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 49 

We have dwelt sufficiently long on paganism, 
and most true is the celebrated saying of Augus- 
tine, that the virtues of the heathens were but 
splendid sins. We might descend the current of 
the Greek empire, and consider the characters and 
powers of Theodora, the consort of Justinian, and 
Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, neither of whom 
could have been women of ordinary ability. We 
might glance at the masculine mind and powerful 
administration of Pulcheria, who seems, among the 
descendants of the great Theodosius, to have de- 
served the same eulogium as Napoleon bestowed 
on a female member of the Bourbon line, Madame 
d' Angouleme, whom he designated as ' the only 
man of her family.' The powerful mind of the 
sister of the younger Theodosius was contrasted, in 
some degree, by the elegant genius of his wife 
Eudocia, whose writings, applauded by a servile 
and superstitious age, have not shrunk before the 
surer test of impartial criticism. But it is enough. 
The mind turns from the review of wasted talents 
and abused powers, such as we see in too many 
whose names we have mentioned, to solace itself 
with the recollection of the women of the apostolic 
age, and of the Christian church. Most just is 



50 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 



the remark of Milner at the commencement of his 
Church History. ' The female sex, almost ex- 
cluded from civil history, will appear perhaps more 
conspicuous in ecclesiastical. Less immersed in 
secular concerns, and less haughty and independent 
in spirit, they seem in all ages, to have had their 
full proportion, or more than the other sex, of the 
grace of the Gospel.' It is as refreshing to the 
mind, as green after glaring scarlet is to the eye, to 
turn from the brilliant daughters of Greece and 
Egypt, and from the haughty matrons of Rome, to 
gaze for a few moments on the women delineated 
in the Gospel of the meek and lowly Jesus. 
Purposely did we abstain from the mention of the 
distinguished Hebrew women of old, because we 
would not be guilty of the irreverence of speaking 
of the inspired compositions of Deborah and of 
Hannah as merely literary productions. But under 
the view we have just taken, we may be allowed 
to refresh our eyes with the character of the virgin 
mother of our Lord, who, contemplating the cir- 
cumstances of his life, " kept all these things and 
pondered them in her heart." We may see Martha 
sedulous in her attendance on the Lord ; and more 
blessed still, Mary, who sat at his feet and listened t 



WOMEN 01' ANCIENT TIMES. 51 

his heavenly instructions. We observe women, and 
some of them of no mean rank, faithful in minis- 
tering to the Lord of their substance ; we see the 
three Maries close to the cross, in the final hour of 
Christ's agony. When haughtier man " forsook 
and fled," woman was found the last at the cross, 
the first at the sepulchre. It was a woman, who, 
in breaking the alabaster box of very precious oint- 
ment on the head of our Lord, came before-hand 
to prepare his body for the burial; and it was 
women, who with generous affection, prepared 
spices, to offer, as they thought, the last solemnities 
to the body of their beloved Master. Who would 
not exchange the brightest wreath of laurel that 
ever adorned a female brow, for the simple sentence 
recorded concerning Tabitha ; " this woman was 
full of good works and alms-deeds which she did n " 
What woman, who has any love for the truth, does 
not pant for the same grace as that bestowed upon the 
humble-minded and hospitable Lydia, " whose 
heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the 
things which were spoken of Paul ?" Many women 
are mentioned, and commended by name in the 
Pauline epistles. We hear of Phebe, who had 
been a succourer of many, and of Paul also. Pris- 
e 2 



52 WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 

cilia, the wife of Aquila, seems to have been a 
Christian of eminence. In conjunction with her 
husband, we find her expounding to the eloquent 
and learned Apollos, " the way of God more per- 
fectly ; '' and the testimony of Paul in the epistle to 
the Romans, to the earnest laboriousness, and 
generous devotion of herself and her husband is ver y 
striking. Many women are named in the closing 
chapter of that epistle ; Mary who bestowed much 
labour on the apostle ; Tryphena and Tryphosa, 
" who laboured in the Lord ; '' the beloved Persis, 
" who laboured much in the Lord ; " the sister of 
Nereus, and the mother of Rufus. We find Claudia, 
supposed to be a British lady, and the daughter of 
the celebrated Caractacus, mentioned in the second 
epistle to Timothy. In taking a step beyond the 
apostolic age, we glory in Blandina, the faithful mar- 
tyr of Christ Jesus in the dreadful persecution at 
Lyons and Vienne in the second century; and, ad- 
vancing to the third century, we rejoice in beholding 
Perpetua, a lady of quality, and Felicitas a female 
slave, cheerfully yielding themselves up for Christ's 
sake, and suffering all tortures, rather than deny 
Him who died that poor sinners might live. 

This is a discursive paper, and it is time to close 



WOMEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 53 

it. We had thought of the important benefits that 
women have been instrumental in procuring to 
nations, in the introduction of Christianity. We 
had thought of Clotilda, the wife of Clovis, and 
of Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert, and the influence 
which each royal lady exercised over the mind of 
her husband, but enough has been said. Influence 
is ours, power is ours; O let us be faithful in 
glorifying God with his own gifts ! 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING IN WOMEN,. 
AND ON SOME WOMEN OF LEARNING. 

The question has often been agitated, is learning de- 
sirable or even allowable in women ? The answer 
is very frequently given in the negative. • Ladies 
have not time/ it is urged, ' nor even power of 
mind to acquire a solid and substantial knowledge 
of the learned languages ; and the attempt has a 
tendency to withdraw them from the studies be- 
fitting their powers, and from the duties incumbent 
on their sex. A little learning is, proverbially a 
dangerous thing ; when deep draughts cannot be 
taken, it is better not to taste. Pride, conceit, affec- 
tation, are the sure concomitants,' it is further 
argued, ' of learned ladies, who will be little likely to 






CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 55 

condescend to the common details of housekeeping, 
and to enter into the minutiae of the chamber of 
sickness.' 

We hear this, or language like this, every time 
the subject is brought forward. Much of it is ra- 
ther old, and will be found better expressed in Mo- 
liere — 

" Non, non, je ne veux point d'un esprit qui soit haut, 
Et femme qui compose en sait plus qu'il ne faut. 
Je pretends que la mienne, en clartes peu sublime, 
Meme ne sache pas ce que c'est qu'une rime ; 
Et c'est assez pour elle, a vous en bien parler, 
De savoir prier Dieu, m'aimer, coudre et filer.' 1 * 

And at yet greater length, (but we must not tran- 
scribe the speech,) in the famous harangue of Chry- 
sale to his wife and sister in " Les Femmes Sa- 
vantes," when they drove away a poor servant for 
not speaking grammatically. Playful declamation 
will not stand in the stead of solid argument. In 
analyzing/the objections against learning in women, 
we find them reducible to three principal heads ; 
want of power, temptation to pride, and neglect of 
common duty. 

We do not recommend learning for all women. 
It would be most absurd. Thousands have not 
* Ecole des femmes. 



56 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

power to make any real proficiency, being in that 
respect neither better nor worse than thousands of 
the opposite and superior sex. The Author of 
Home Education has himself reasoned, and forcibly 
too, against subjecting the minds of all young men 
to one unvarying course of classical discipline, 
from the very circumstance that is now adduced 
with regard to females, — the unsuitability of the 
studies to the powers of the mind. With boys, 
even the heaviest and dullest boys, it may, however, 
be doubted whether any study can be advanta- 
geously substituted for that of the classics. Mo- 
dern languages give too strong a tincture to the 
mind ; they teach it to look on objects as through 
a coloured glass ; it is not so in an equal degree 
with those languages, which, having ceased to be 
spoken by any living nation, offer models for imita- 
tion to every civilized part of the globe; and 
have* supplied the very mirrors by which mo- 
dern poets and orators have delighted to dress 
themselves. Taste, real taste, must ever be on 
the decline in a country in which the relics of 
antiquity are neglected, and there are other reasons, 
too long to enumerate here, why, even with the 
dullest boy in easy circumstances, a little Latin 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 57 

and Greek is preferable to a little French and Ger- 
man. With women, we acknowledge it is different, 
but the very beauty of the studies is a reason why 
they should no more be excluded in a body from 
enjoying them, than that they should be prevented 
from gazing on the exquisite models of statuary 
which have chastened and refined the taste of modern 
nations. In Mrs. Mores " Coelebs" are some good 
arguments in favour of what is here urged ; but 
there is no reason why, when a lady is convicted, 
like Lucilla Stanley, of being a ' Latin -bred wo- 
man,' she should derange the whole tea-equipage 
in her confusion before making her exit. 

In arguing for the high advantages of classical 
studies for some women, let it be fully understood, 
that we would not extend the privilege to all. It is 
so important to be clear, that the repetition may be 
pardoned. A certain degree of talent, and the pos- 
session or prospect of fortune sufficient to exempt 
from the heavy pressure of domestic cares, might 
justify the application of mind to these beautiful 
studies ; or, still supposing talent, the contrary cir- 
cumstance, the necessity of exerting it for gaining 
a livelihood, would likewise render the pursuit justi- 
fiable. If that could once be proved, which is often 



58 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

assumed, that learning in women disqualifies for 
duty, or even makes the fulfilment of duty a dis- 
agreeable hardship, we could, on sober principle, 
have no more to say in behalf of learning, since our 
very motive for arguing for it at all is, that the 
sphere of influence may be extended, and duty 
better fulfilled. 

The opinion of Erasmus upon this subject, may 
be allowed to have some weight. • A woman,' he 
says, ' who is truly learned, does not think that she 
is learned ; on the contrary, one, who when she 
knows nothing, thinks that she knows every 
thing, is doubly foolish.' And with regard to the 
expediency of classical learning in woman, his 
opinion is pointed and strong. ' The common 
opinion is, that the Latin language is ill suited 
to women, as not being likely to maintain their 
humility ; since it is a rare and unusual thing for 
a woman to know Latin, but custom is a teacher 
of all bad things. It is honourable for a woman 
born in Germany to learn French, in order that she 
may converse with those who know French ; why 
then should it be thought indecorous to learn Latin, 
that she may daily converse with so many eloquent, 
learned, wise, and instructive authors ? Certainly 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 59 

I would rather employ whatsoever has been given 
me of understanding, in wholesome studies, than in 
prayers repeated without being understood, in 
nightly revels, in long banquets, &c.' Not that 
the most learned Erasmus meant that ladies are 
likely to exhaust their time and strength in the 
latter class of employments, but if you substitute 
plays, balls, concerts, and masquerades, for revels and 
banquets, his argument will hold good. 

One of the most earnest advocates for classical 
studies in women, that England has known, was 
the Lady Mary Wortley Montague. These opi- 
nions of Erasmus are translated from quotations 
made in a very remarkable letter of hers, addressed 
to Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, written 
when she was but nineteen, and accompanying a 
translation of the Enchiridion of E pic tetus, which 
she had executed from the Latin. Her opinion as 
to the value of classical literature for women seems 
to have strengthened with years ; since we find her, 
during her last residence abroad, earnestly recom- 
mending the pursuit for her grand-daughters, in 
her letters to her daughter, Lady Bute. It is a less 
expensive acquisition, she urges, than any accom- 
plishment ; two hours each day of attentive study 



60 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

would suffice as to time, and the value as a per- 
manent resource would remain when that of more 
fashionable accomplishments has passed away. 

In arguing for really valuable acquirements in 
women, we have no desire to strike off the more 
light and elegant pursuits which custom has as- 
signed to the sex. Music and drawing form an 
employment in youth, and furnish an elegant source 
of recreation in riper years : but that is precisely 
the point ; to an immortal and intellectual being, 
they can, in riper years, furnish recreation only. 
Something more will be wanted ; a void will be felt. 
Mental faculties require employment ; pursuits of 
sufficient dignity will be sought to afford meditation 
during our manual occupations, and to give a use- 
ful direction to the thoughts. The value of vigorous 
occupation is felt upon the whole character. It is a 
practical axiom that idle persons, and those who are 
not compelled by engagements to economize time, 
and arrange employments, never do any thing well. 
In all public undertakings, if any thing is required to 
be really well done, application is not made to those 
who are at leisure, but to those who are already 
fully occupied. 

Domestic duties, upon which so much earnest elo- 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 61 

quence is spent, are not sufficient really to occupy 
the whole of the time of any woman, unless indeed 
her family be very large, and her circumstances so 
limited as to compel her to give much personal as- 
sistance. Every woman has duties beyond her 
immediate domestic ones. The latter must be 
fulfilled, for they are continually recurring, and 
sad disorder will, if they are neglected, be in- 
troduced into the whole machine ; but the whole 
time need not be, though we acknowledge it might 
be, employed in turning one wheel. Leisure will be 
left for the cultivation of some worthy pursuit, 
something to put to flight that ugly little sprite, 
Ennui, with her attendant train of what used to be 
yclept vapours and spleen, but which are now known 
and stigmatized under the general designation of 
nervousness. Want of employment is the source of 
much that is evil in women ; of much that is pre- 
judicial to health. Real study, continued em- 
ployment, is often found one of the best medicines 
for many who account themselves invalids ; and if 
it be a cure for physical, it is also one of the best 
antidotes against moral evils. Ennui is not merely 
the source of sin, it is symptomatic of moral de- 
rangement, and is in itself sinful. 



62 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

We are quite conscious that we are taking a low- 
ground, in assigning the necessity for real employ- 
ment in after-life, as one reason for the pursuit of 
classical studies during the youth of women. Yet on 
looking abroad in England at this present day on 
the women of the upper and middle classes of so- 
ciety, how many do we see who are seriously in- 
jured in mind and body for want of employment ! 
The curse pronounced on Adam, " In the sweat of 
thy face shalt thou eat bread," has entailed labour 
of some kind or degree on all his posterity, and 
such as endeavour to escape the general doom by 
taking refuge in indolence and lassitude, are in 
fact self-tormentors, and wear out life without any 
benefit to themselves or others. 

Taking then the fact, which will not be often 
disputed, that women in the educated classes of so- 
ciety, have in general more time at their disposal 
than men, we descend to meet another objection ; 
the want of power. Perhaps this is best refuted by 
facts, and with the recollection of Madame Dacier 
in France, so well known to every modern classical 
student under her frequent title of " doctissima Da- 
ciera ; " of Mrs. Carter in England, the translator of 
Epictetus, and of the women of the Elizabethan 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 63 

age, it appears needless to spend time in proving 
what is obvious to all. Mrs. Carter's attain- 
ments in Greek would have done honour to a 
professor. Her excellent translation of Epictetus is 
a standing monument of her acquirements, and the 
indirect eulogy of Dr. Johnson, who, speaking of 
some learned man, said that' he spoke better Greek 
than any person he had ever met with excepting 
Elizabeth Carter/ is scarcely less honourable to hei\ 
As for pride and conceit, that too may be refuted 
by facts. It will be found, even in poor weak wo- 
man, that pride, and what Nicole, the French mora- 
list calls, 'TenA lire du coeur,' do not arise in general 
from real, but from imaginary attainments. We 
are less likely to be puffed up, paradoxical as it 
may seem, by the consciousness of knowing any 
thing well, than by the imagination of knowing 
it. The evil is not in the food supplied ; if vanity 
reside in the heart, it will feed with cormorant ap- 
petite on eveiy thing. It is, as Hume, the philo- 
sophic Hume, said of himself, ' a glutton, and not 
an epicure.' The true way to keep vanity from 
catering for sustenance on intellectual ground, is to 
give woman really solid and good instruction. 'Do 
not tell me that I am clever/ said a very highly- 



64 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

gifted woman, ' I do not care for that ; I know it 
perfectly ; if you wish to give me pleasure, tell me 
that I am handsome.' The latter point, it ap- 
pears, was not quite so well established. 

It would be too much to say that intellectual pride 
and vanity are never found in learned females ; nei- 
ther can it be alleged that they are never found 
in learned men. The younger Scaliger was a most 
noted example of insufferable vanity, quite as bad 
as can be met with in any woman. And it would 
be equally incorrect on the other hand, to maintain 
that vanity is a necessary concomitant to learning 
in the feebler sex. Allusion has already been made 
to the acquirements of the venerable Mrs. Carter : 
Mrs. More, who was intimate with her, expressly 
mentions her humility and feminine modesty. The 
subject being important, it may be permitted to 
illustrate it by another example, Anne Lefevre, 
Madame Dacier. 

The distinguished fame of this lady has been 
already referred to ; she was illustrious among the 
learned men of her age, and by the judgment of 
no less a person than Boileau-Despreaux, she far 
surpassed her celebrated husband. Madame Dacier 
is a striking example that high attainments are not 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 65 

incompatible with feminine modesty, but to give 
more force to the assertion, those attainments must 
be» reviewed. 

The father of Madame Dacier, Monsieur Le- 
fevre, was a Greek professor. Being in the room, 
employed in needle-work, while her brother was 
being taught Latin and Greek by her father, she 
caught up the instructions with great rapidity, and 
gave answers when her brother was unable to do so. 
Her father, struck with her extraordinary aptitude, 
resolved to bestow upon her a learned education. 
Alas ! how many Madame Daciers have been bu- 
ried in obscurity from never having had talent eli- 
cited ! The complaint in Gray's elegy recurs to 
the memory ; but we must hasten on with our 
review. The expectations of Monsieur Lefevre as 
to his daughter's powers were not disappointed ; 
at the age of twenty-three, she published an edition 
of Callimachus with notes, and was afterwards em- 
ployed by the Duke of Montausier in the Delphin 
editions. She married Monsieur Dacier in 1683, 
and several of her works were afterwards published 
in conjunction with her husband. Her second 
work was an edition of Florus. III. Dictys Cre- 
tensis — IV. Sextus Aurelius — V. Anacreon and 



66 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

Sappho — VI. Eutropius — VII. Translations of 
Plautus — VIII. Translations of Aristophanes — 
IX. Translation of Terence — X. Translation of 
two of Plutarch's Lives. — XI. Translation of the 
Iliad — XII. Causes de la corruption du gout — 
XIII. Homere defendu — XIV, Translation of 
the Odyssey. 

Such were the labours of this . distinguished 
woman : let us now glance at the feminine part of 
her character. She is recorded to have been 
eminently domestic and exemplary in the dis- 
charge of the duties of ordinary life. So far from 
being intoxicated with the applause bestowed on 
her talents and acquirements, we are particularly 
told, that being once asked by a German nobleman 
to write her name in a book which he had appro- 
priated for the reception of the hand-writing of 
celebrated persons, she, for a long time, steadily 
refused. Overcome at last by importunity, she 
yielded to his request, but placed after her name a 
verse of Sophocles, signifying that silence is suited to 
women. Though frequently urged to make her 
meditations on Scripture public, she always de- 
clined, alleging that the publication of such a work 
would be an infringement of St. Paul's injunc- 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 67 

tion, that women are to learn in silence, and not to 
teach. 

The character of Margaret Roper, the beloved 
and accomplished daughter of Sir Thomas More, is 
another example as to the possibility of the union 
of grave acquirements with gentle affections and 
feminine graces. But enough has been said on this 
subject, and we would ascend to a higher eminence. 

Talent, where it exists in man or in woman, is a 
precious gift of God, for the improvement as well 
as employment of which the possessor is account- 
able. If it be once granted, what cannot well be 
denied, that classical studies are the studies most 
conducive towards drawing out the faculties of the 
mind, that they afford the greatest variety of exer- 
cise, enlarge the domain of thought, give precision 
and exactness to knowledge, and open up stores of 
the most eminently useful information, we argue 
that in many cases, it may be really a duty to give 
a young woman a classical education. In the great 
majority of women in comfortable circumstances, 
sufficient knowledge of Latin to comprehend the 
syntax and etymology of our own language, will 
be found a most useful acquisition ; and should 
there be ability and leisure in after life, it will 
r 2 



68 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

form a basis on which further acquirements may be 
grounded. It is often more easy to carry on, than 
it is to make a beginning. 

For one thing we honour the memory of Henry 
VIII. He was the first man in England who 
gave his daughters a learned education, and it was 
to the example, which in this respect he set, that 
England is indebted for the women and the men 
of the Elizabethan age.* The value of these ac- 
complishments in the spread of reformed truth in 
England cannot now perhaps be adequately appre- 
ciated. The revival of Greek literature has often 
been noticed in conjunction with the rise of the 
Reformation ; and it is right to say that the study of 
Greek was not then considered in the light of grave 
and masculine learning, so much as in that of a 
fashionable accomplishment, and one consequently 
which might be pursued by persons of both sexes. 
Nicholas Udal, once head-master of Eton and 
afterwards canon of Windsor, gives a pleasing account 
of the ladies of England in the time of Henry the 
Eighth, in a dedicatory epistle to Queen Katharine 
Parr. ' Now in this gracious and blissful time of 

* Southey's Book of the Church, Chap. xii. p. 295, 4th 
Edition. 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 69 

knowledge,' says this learned man, ' in which it 
hath pleased God Almighty to reveal and shew 
abroad the light of his most holy gospel, what a 
number is there of noble women, especially here in 
this realm of England, yea, and how many in the 
years of tender virginity, not only as well seen, 
and as familiarly traded in the Latin and Greek 
tongues, as in their own mother-language ; but also 
in all kinds of literature and arts, made exact, 
studied and exercised, and in the holy scripture 
and theology so ripe, that they are able aptly, 
wisely, and with much grace, either to indite or to 
translate into the vulgar tongue, for the public in- 
struction and edifying of the unlearned multitude ! 
Neither is it now a strange thing to hear gentle- 
women, instead of most vain communication 
about the moon shining in the water, to use grave 
and substantial talk in Latin and Greek, with their 
husbands, of godly matters. It is now no news in 
England, for young damsels in noble houses, and 
in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other 
instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in 
their hands either psalms, homilies, and other de- 
vout meditations, or else Paul's epistles, or some 
book of holy scripture matters ; and as familiarly 



70 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

to read or reason thereof, in Greek, Latin, French, 
or Italian, as in English. It is now a common 
thing to see young virgins so nursed and trained 
in the study of letters, that they willingly set all 
other vain pastimes at nought, for learning's sake. 
It is now no news at all to see queens and ladies 
of most high state and progeny, instead of courtly 
dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading 
and writing, and with most earnest study, both 
early and late, to apply themselves to the acquiring 
of knowledge, as well in all other liberal arts and 
disciplines, as also most especially of God and his 
most holy word/ 

Among the ladies thus described, may be men- 
tioned Queen Katharine Pari', the Princesses Mary 
and Elizabeth, the four daughters of Sir Anthony 
Cooke, (one of the tutors of King Edward VI.) 
and the excellent Lady Jane Grey. Allusion has 
already been made to the benefits derived from this 
source in the diffusion of the reformed religion. 
The labours of Queen Katharine Parr were alone 
very valuable in promoting this end. We do not 
allude merely to her own works, several of which 
remain to this day, and manifest deep acquaintance 
with Scripture, and with her own heart. We allude 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 71 

more particularly to a work executed by her means 
and under her superintendence, a translation of the 
paraphrases of Erasmus on the New Testament. 
The paraphrase on the Gospel of John was begun 
by the Princess Mary, but finished by her chaplain 
Dr. Mallet, ' she being cast into sickness, partly 
by overmuch study in this work.' This translation, 
emanating from such a quarter, published at a very 
important crisis, and circulated throughout the 
kingdom, must have had an important influence on 
the public mind. 

It is not generally known that Queen Mary, the 
daughter of Henry VIII., and the bloody perse- 
cutor of the Protestants, was distinguished for her 
attainments in languages. She wrote both Latin 
and Italian with great spirit, and her letters in the 
former language, are commended by no less a per- 
son than Erasmus. It does not fall however within 
our province to follow out the melancholy course of 
talents mis-applied, and acquirements perverted. 
The history of the gentle and unfortunate Lady 
Jane Grey, would furnish us with a more pleasing 
subject for contemplation. The powers and ac- 
complishments of this very young and illustrious 
lady, devoted as they were to the cause of Protes- 



72 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

tant truth, gave a weight and dignity to her reli- 
gious sentiments, and placed her adherence to the 
truth in stronger relief. Whether all her epistles 
to Bullinger were her own unassisted productions, 
may he questioned ; hut certainly the calm equa- 
nimity of mind, almost unparallelled in history, 
with which she descended from a throne to a dun- 
geon, and afterwards laid her head upon the block, 
if it owed its origin, as it most undoubtedly did, to 
her strong religious principles, received some sub- 
ordinate aid from the strength of mind imparted 
and fostered by the severe discipline of her educa- 
tion. The value of her acquirements was felt also 
in her conferences with the Papists, especially in 
that long and tedious disputation with Feckenham, 
some particulars of which have been preserved by 
Foxe. Her clear views of divine truth were quite 
as remarkable as the classical acquirements which 
were the admiration of E urope ; and the earnestness 
with which she pressed the subject of religion on all 
with whom, in her last moments, she had any inter- 
course, is very affecting. She was a beautiful cha- 
racter ; her simple appeal at the close of her life was 
not in vain, 'God and posterity will shew me favour.' 
The four daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke were 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 73 

all distinguished for learning, and appear also to 
have been women of real piety. Three employed 
their talents in a labour which seems, by its un- 
pretending character to be particularly well suited 
to females, — the work of translation. Mildred, af- 
terwards Lady Burleigh, who appears to have been 
deeply read in the Fathers, translated a piece of 
Chrysostom from Greek into English. The labours 
of Anne, wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon, were yet more 
remarkable. In 1562, a few years after the Coun- 
cil of Trent had been summoned by the Pope, 
Bishop Jewell wrote his ' Apology for the Church 
of England,' in order to refute the charges brought 
against our church by the Romanists. The work 
instantly obtained a high reputation, but being in 
Latin, was locked up from many who would gladly 
have considered its arguments. A translation was 
loudly called for, but the learned divines of Eng- 
land, occupied in refuting the calumnies which 
were daily increasing, had no leisure to gratify the 
public curiosity. In this dilemma the Lady Bacon 
came forward, offered to translate the ' Apology,' 
and executed her task with equal fidelity and ele- 
gance. She sent a copy of her work, when finished, 
to the primate, as being most interested in the safety 



74 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

of the church ; a second copy, she presented to the 
author, lest she should, inadvertently, in any re- 
spect, have done inj ustice to his sentiments. This 
second copy she accompanied with a Greek epistle, 
to which the bishop replied in the same language. 
Both the primate and the author bestowed the 
highest commendations on the talents and erudition 
of the fair translator, and the translation is, with a 
few corrections, the one in common use, at this 
day. 

' The greatest is behind.' The character of 
Queen Elizabeth, the refounder of the English 
church, influenced her age. She raised England 
to a pitch of glory which was before unknown and 
undreamt of; she shivered the power of Spain; 
broke the sword of France ; stretched her protect- 
ing shield over the Low Countries ; stood in the 
attitude of fearless defiance before the fulminations 
of Rome; from side to side all Europe rang with 
her magnanimous name, and the re-echoing of the 
sound has not yet passed away. Our lion-hearted, 
noble English Queen ! The eulogy of our sweetest 
Shakespeare, at the close of his play of Henry the 
Eighth, glances across the mind, as being scarcely 
beyond what a Protestant, English heart would 






CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 75 

spontaneously dictate.* The influence of the deeds 
of the greatest of our Sovereigns is felt to this very 
day, and we, at the distance of nearly three hun- 
dred years, have reason to bless the Lord that He 
did grant the prayers of many, (among others of 
his faithful and constant martyr Bishop Latimer,) 
in ' preserving the Lady Elizabeth, and making 
her a blessing to this so desolate realm of Eng- 
land.' We need not enter into the detail of Eliza- 
beth's elaborate education and extraordinary at- 
tainments ; we do boldly and unhesitatingly affirm 
that, in the crisis, civil and ecclesiastical, at which 
she was called to bear rule and sway over this 
land, if she had not been endowed with abilities of 
a superior order, and if those abilities had not been 
improved by the highest advantages of human 
learning, she could not have acted the part which 
she was enabled to take. 

We have said enough to prove the benefit, which 
solid acquirements in females conferred on the 

* The highly anti- papal feeling evinced in the works of our 
greatest dramatist is worthy of notice, whether we consider 
him as flowing down with the current of popular opinion, or 
which is more likely, aiming to influence it. We would in- 
stance the indignant invective of John against Papal inter- 
ference, and various passages in the play of Henry VIII. 



76 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

cause of Protestantism in England. But we may 
carry our eye for a few moments beyond our own 
country. A strong impulse had been given to the 
human mind, and woman, delicate, sensitive woman 
felt its vibration. Roscoe in his life of Lorenzo 
di Medicis, remarks that women made great pro- 
gress in Greek, and instances Alessandra Scala, and 
Cassandra Fidelis. Olympia Fulvia Morata, was 
one of the most conspicuous ornaments of her sex 
in Italy for her learning and piety. The recollec- 
tion of the court of Ferrara, at which Olympia for 
some time resided, recals to the mind a lady yet 
more distinguished. Renee, daughter of Louis 
XII. of France, was remarkable for her attainments 
in mathematics, astronomy, Greek and Latin. 
She married Hercules, duke of Ferrara, and to the 
utmost of her power, patronized the Protestants. 
Nor was she the only royal lady of the family of 
France, whose beneficial influence was thus felt ; 
Margaret, Queen of Navarre, sister to Francis I. 
published the • Mirror of a sinful soul,' in which 
no mention is made of saints and Romish errors, 
but, as it ought to be in every work on Christianity, 
Christ is all in all. Margaret invited Christian 
teachers into France, and from one of these, settled 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 7/ 

at Bourges, Calvin himself imbibed the rudiments 
both of the Greek language and of Protestantism. 
The connexion between Greek and Protestantism 
was, in this age, particularly close, so much so that 
the ignorant monks denounced Greek as the lan- 
guage of Satan, and affirmed that a certain book 
called the New Testament, written therein, was 
most dangerous as the source of all heresies. 

We need not pursue the subject further. The 
point is attained at which we designed to make a 
stop. Women are not mere nonentities in the 
world : Satan knows this truth well, and she turns 
it to account. They may be powerful barriers 
against the progress of error, even as the soft sand 
is a strong bar to the sea; or they may be the very 
flood-gates through which the tide of error and 
heresy may rush in to deluge a whole country. 
The foundations of Protestantism are, at this very 
time, sustaining a fierce attack. " If the founda- 
tions be destroyed, what shall the righteous do ?" 
We see, in examining closely the records of by- 
gone days, that there were women who had their 
minds imbued with Christian truth drawn direct from 
the original scriptures, and who were ready to give 
to every one that asked them an answer, as to the 



78 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

reason of the hope that was in them. These women 
did not take their opinions second-hand ; they did 
not pin their faith upon the sleeve of any man ; they 
sought the scriptures for themselves, and sought them 
daily and diligently, to know whether these things 
were so. Learning separate from religion, is but a 
powerful instrument for evil, and be it remembered 
that we argue for ' religious education' in conjunction 
with ' sound learning' and as the basis of it. Place 
a firebrand, if you will, in the hand of a madman, 
but give to neither man nor woman this engine, 
almost as potent as Archimedes' fancied lever, 
unless you join with it, the power of directing it 
aright. You will answer, that it is beyond human 
power to touch the secret springs of the will, and 
really to direct the motives of action. Very true, you 
can only put in the way, but you know the en- 
couragement as it regards ourselves and others, "I, 
being in the way, the Lord led me." 

This may appear a digression. Let it for once 
be pardoned, for we hasten back to the beaten road. 
Earnestly, would we make the appeal ; educate wo- 
men, elevate them, raise the standard of thought 
among them ; delude their eyes no longer with 
halves, quarters, most miserable little fractions of 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. IV 

truth. It is but little that the human mind under 
the most favourable circumstances can receive of 
that glorious effulgence which may truly be styled, 
' Of the Eternal, co-eternal beam.' We gaze, are 
dazzled, and bend our eyes to earth again. A yet 
more important consideration is that partial truths 
partake of the nature of falsehood ; at all events, of 
error. The heresies which, from time to time have 
shaken and convulsed the Christian church, and 
would have overthrown it, if it had not been founded 
on a rock, against which the gates of hell cannot 
prevail, have not arisen so much from the basis of 
falsehood, as from that of holding truth partially, or 
one truth so prominently as to exclude others from 
the view. Error and heresy have also had another 
source. Truth has fallen upon minds unprepared to 
receive it, and it has been misunderstood. The rays 
were bright and perfect, but they were reflected obli- 
quely from the fault of the mirror s and an imperfect, 
and disturbed image was formed; and we must ever 
most accurately distinguish immortal, unchangeable 
truth, as she exists in the abstract, from the dim 
apprehension of it in the mind of man. Why then 
cast a thick all-darkening veil over the understand- 
ing of women ? If their faculties are often infe- 



80 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

rior to those of men, their privileges are equal ; 
they hold as Christians the same hopes, they aspire 
after the same home. Give them, where there is 
power to use it, access to the same sources of Bi- 
blical knowledge ; it is important for themselves ; 
it may be important to others, for every one is an 
agent either for good or for evil. Let them be able 
to distinguish between the two ; the tree of know- 
ledge has once been tasted ; let one half of the hu- 
man species have power to refuse the evil and 
choose the good. These are not days when it is 
safe to cast aside any weapon of offence or defence ; 
they are rather days when, like Nehemiah and his 
prayerful company, we should stand with our wea- 
pons of war in one hand, and our building imple- 
ments in the other. Popery has been working to 
an immense extent in a disguised fonn within the 
precincts of our own beloved church. It was la- 
tent ; it took no name ; as the religion of the na- 
tural heart, it had a key to the heart, and in the 
Anglican church, many who were to all intents and 
purposes Papists, were unconsciously living, more 
awful still, were dying, and have passed from time 
into eternity. Of late that hidden, disguised, cun- 
ning popery took a name ; yes, identifying herself 



CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 81 

with the mystical Harlot of the Apocalypse (Rev. 
xvii. 5.) she took many names, so many that it is 
difficult to know what to call her. We may say Pu- 
seyism for distinction's sake, but we recognize the 
branch of the olden tree. Women with their strong 
feelings and slight information are peculiarly ex- 
posed to the influence of this wily foe. A good 
knowledge of the Greek Testament need not be 
called learning, but if that were attained through- 
out the land, by all the females who are capable of. 
the study, it would be a very powerful preservative 
against evil. 

The application of the argument to the days 
in which we live, gives weight to the argument. 
The enemy has secretly worked a mine under 
the holy and beautiful house in which our fa- 
thers worshipped their God and our God ; and 
it is most grievous to think that any part of the 
edifice should crumble into dust. Many who 
were set as watchmen over the house, are lend- 
ing their hands to its destruction; others, (and 
blessed be God for it,) are ' contending earnestly 
for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.' 
We know that these are proverbially times of ready- 
made knowledge, superficial information ; but we 



82 CONSIDERATIONS ON LEARNING. 

know also that when weightier matters are treated of, 
slight knowledge and superficial views will stand in 
no stead. In the days when Protestantism, after 
having been buried for ages under a heap of rubbish, 
awoke to life and energy, and with generous im- 
pulse struggled from the ground, « pawing to be 
free,' women were enabled to take an active, a de- 
cided part. Oh that they could now, as then, be 
awakened to a sense of their real importance, their 
mighty responsibility ! Half workers, purblind 
labourers are of no use ; we must have those who 
can see clearly their way before them ; even " such 
as by reason of use have their senses exercised to 
discern between good and evil." 



VI. 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 

The domain of poetry is wide ; her power over the 
human heart immense. It is hers to describe, with 
truth and force, those objects which are too vast, and 
those which are too minute for ordinary ken ; the 
former escaping common observation, from the in- 
ability of an ordinary eye to take the range of the 
whole at one view ; and the latter, from the 
delicacy of observation required for their survey. It 
is hers to express in vigorous and powerful language 
the workings of the stronger passions of the human 
heart, when the whole man is convulsed, and when 
thought and feeling spurn the common words of 
calm, quiet, every -day life. And it is hers too to 
embody and give permanence to those delicate, 
g 2 



84 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

evanescent emotions which pass over the mind like 
the blush over the maiden's brow, and which can 
no more be distinguished by the powers of an or- 
dinary mind, than the blending and intermingling 
of the rain-bow tints. It is the province of poetry 
to arouse by her trumpet-call to vigorous action, 
and to melt by her plaintive warblings to gentle 
and tender emotion. Sometimes she is found 
amid scenes of horror and sublimity, hanging over 
the beetling precipice and listening to the roar of 
of the torrent far, far beneath ; at other times she 
delights to rove amid scenes of rural beauty, watch- 
ing the sun-beams flickering on the fields, listening 
to the warbling of the birds, and rejoicing in even 
the simple little flowerets which spring up beneath 
her feet ; but whether she is amid scenes of sub- 
limity or scenes of beauty, still true to herself, she 
inspires feelings and sentiments, and gives ex- 
pression to them. The ' thoughts that voluntary 
move harmonious numbers' are her gift. "When 
religion takes poetry into her service, the province 
of the handmaid is yet farther extended, her power 
amazingly increased. Linked to eternal, immuta- 
ble truth, how wide is her range ! how sweet, how 
potent is her song ! Secret springs of the human 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 85 

heart before untouched, because unknown, are now 
subject to her thrilling sway. And her sphere of 
vision is no longer bounded by an earthly horizon. 
Far, far away, • beyond this visible diurnal sphere,' 
upwards, upwards, above ' this dim spot which men 
call earth,' she soars on the wings of faith and hope, 
till the harmonies of heaven fall upon her delighted 
ear, and the splendours of heaven beam upon her 
raptured eye. 

The power of poetry is not confined to those who 
take rank and precedence as the poets of the land. 
That would be a cold and an inglorious doctrine. 

" Many are poets, who have never penned 
Their inspiration, and perchance the best." 

Many unconsciously are poets ; thoughts and feel- 
ings struggle within, and sometimes flash out in 
glowing, burning words, marking their path in a 
line of living light. Poetry is the forcible expres- 
sion of truth. Far from us and ours be the debasing 
doctrine that its proper region is fiction. Poetry 
rejoices in the truth ; there it can spread its wings 
with ease and freedom, unfettered and unimpeded. 
In the words of a living poet of great and heart- 
stirring power, 

" Song is but the eloquence of truth. 1 ' 



86 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

And a mighty, glorious eloquence it is. The mo- 
narch seated on his throne bends beneath its power, 
and the savage, roaming in his wild woods, acknow- 
ledges its sway. 

Is the hand of poor weak woman ever permitted 
to sweep the living lyre, and to elicit its thrilling 
tones ? The notes are varied ; it is a lyre of many 
strings, an instrument of wider range than any 
constructed by mortal hand ; what tones, what notes 
vibrate most in unison with woman's heart, and will 
be most likely, when struck by her hand, to speak 
to the heart of others ? 

We cannot doubt the answer. All that is beau- 
tiful in form, delicate in sentiment, graceful in ac- 
tion, will form the peculiar province of the gentle 
powers of woman. scorn us not ! We may 
not, we cannot ' murmur tales of iron wars ,' follow 
the currents of a heady fight ; pourtray with the 
vivid power of Homeric song, the horrid din of 
war, the rush of contending warriors, the prancing 
of the noble steed, the clang, the tumult, the stir- 
ring interest of the battle-field — no — but we can 
do what mightier man would perhaps disdain — we 
can follow one solitary soldier as he drags his 
wounded limbs beneath the sheltering hedge ; and 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 87 

while we mark his glazing eye, we can read with 
woman's keenness, the thoughts of wife, children, 
and home, which are playing around his heart. We 
may not he able to sustain a strain of high and 
equal majesty like the bard of Mantua, but we can 
follow out the sorrows of the forsaken Dido, weep 
over the untimely fate of the warrior-friends, and 
sympathize with the feminine eagerness* of Ca- 
milla, as, womanly even in her power, she forgets 
self-defence and a warrior's duties, in order to seize 
on the splendid ornaments of an officer in the op- 
posing army. We cannot range through heaven 
and hell with the fiery wing of our own glorious 
poet Milton ; we cannot ascend to the height of a 
great argument, and justify the ways of God to 
man. No woman could have delineated the cha- 
racter of Satan, so evidently * not less than archan- 
gel ruined ; ' no woman could have tracked the 
flight of Satan across chaos ; or depicted that mys- 
terious assemblage when the rebel angel stood be- 
fore f the anarch old ; ' but we can imagine that some 
wonderfully endowed woman might have pencilled 

* Totumque incauta per agmen 
Foemineo prsedse et spoliorum, ardebat amore. 

-^Eneid, Lib. xi. v. 781. 



OO POETRY AND POETESSES. 

out some of the light and graceful traits of that 
beautiful picture of the garden of Eden, and the 
happiness of our first parents, a picture which par- 
take so eminently of the beautiful as to afford a con- 
trast to the sublimity of the other parts of our won- 
derful national poem . It is not within our province 
to dive into the deep recesses of the human heart 
with that myriad-minded man, our own Shake- 
speare, and to drag into open day-light the hidden 
secrets of the soul. No ! but there are light and 
delicate movements which a woman's pen may ex- 
press, and which Shakespeare, though unrivalled 
amid poets for his knowledge of woman's heart, has 
not even guessed. We have struck on the point 
where lies the true poetic power of woman. It is 
in the heart — over the heart — and especially in the 
peculiarities of her own heart. We have but few 
remains of the earliest and best of the Greek 
poetesses ; of her who earned the high title of the 
Lesbian muse ; but those remains, f more golden 
than gold,'* are all breathings from the tenderest 
affections of the heart. The exquisite fragment 
preserved by Longinus, and known to the English 

* The words of Sappho herself, XP V<X ° V XP va <^ re P a y preserved 
by Demetrius Phalereus. 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 89 

reader, through the translation of Phillips, so 
praised in the Spectator, is of this class, and de- 
scribes the strong but silent emotions of the heart, 
with delicate correctness of touch. A man could no 
more have written that ode, than he could touch the 
wing of a butterfly without striking off its plumage. 
And in the tender and affectionate hymn to Venus, 
how exquisitely beautiful is every touch ! how 
graceful every line, every word ! In perusing it, 
we cannot feel surprised that critics should hold up 
Sappho as an example of the beautiful in writing. 
And this fact illustrates another principle ; if it is 
the part of every woman of cultivated taste to ad- 
mire what is beautiful, it is the part of the woman 
of genius to express it. 

The domain of beauty is indeed peculiarly the 
sphere of the female poet. We can see the man of 
high poetic genius delightin gin the wide-rolling ocean , 
as it heaves its yesty waves, in dark resistless might 
beneath a frowning sky ; his soul is strengthened 
to hold high converse with the elements, and with 
the spirits which his magician -wand calls forth from 
the vasty deep. But the poetic power of woman 
will demand a gentler scene ; she will love to track 
the little streamlet, as like a thread of silver it winds 



90 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

along the peaceful vale ; or she will watch the light 
smoke of the peaceful cottage as it gracefully curls 
above the surrounding trees, and her heart will pon- 
der on what a true-hearted woman ever loves to 
pourtray, the kindly charities of home. We can 
see the poet watching with high exultation the bold 
and fearless eagle, as in steady grandeur, it rises 
from the earth and gazes unappalled on the splen- 
dours of the noontide sun ; but woman, gentle wo- 
man, will sooner bend over the turtle-dove, admire 
its beautiful form, its delicate plumage, read the 
quick glances of its eye, and with responsive readi- 
ness give meaning to its tender cooing. The man of 
poetic genius will gaze perhaps on the old majestic 
oak, which has for ages, withstood the wintry winds 
as they careered wildly around ; the woman in the 
meanwhile will stoop to gather the little ' Forget- 
me-not' that grows in the neighbouring hedge, and 
as she gazes on the blue-eyed flower, thoughts of 
meeting and parting, a theme of such potent influ- 
ence over every human heart, and it may be, of 
especial interest to the female heart, will crowd over 
her mind, and perhaps fill her speaking eye with 
tears of deep feeling, of fond affection. The words 
of one of our own poets are true ; 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 91 

Different minds 
Incline to different objects ; one pursues 
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild. 

Akenside. 

Place two persons in precisely the same scene ; 
how different will be the objects that will engage 
their attention ; how widely different the mode of 
expressing their feelings ! What different associa- 
tions will the same object summon up, according to 
the nature of the mental constitution, and accord- 
ing to the training and resources of the mind ! 

It is not only with regard to literature that these 
remarks are made. The love of the beautiful, is 
a most important ingredient in the mind of woman. 
It is not only a source of high and pure enjoy- 
ment, but it is so healthy, so invigorating to be able 
heartily to admire what is deserving of admiration. 
In connexion with this subject, we refer with pride 
and pleasure to a female poet of our own country ; 
one who was pre-eminently devoted to what was 
beautiful in nature, art, and action ; it is hardly 
necessary to name Felicia Hemans. 

Mrs. Hemans was most emphatically a lady- 
poet. Elegant in mind, refined in thought and 
sentiment, she loved what was beautiful herself, and 
the strains of her light-breathing harp inspire the 



92 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

love of it to others. She was no amazon in litera- 
ture, but a tender, a delicate, a sensitive woman. 
There was nothing masculine either in her mind or 
in her influence ; the very delicacy of her organiza- 
tion was one source of her talent. She was an 
iEolian harp which responded to the breathing of 
every wind ; alas ! the harp was too finely strung, 
and the strings were shivered by the rude blasts of 
the world before the time. She was a fragile bark 
tossed on the rude billows of life's ocean, feeling 
every shock with ten-fold violence, and buffeted by 
every wind and every wave ; hers could not be a 
tranquil voyage to a more tranquil home. The 
plant of southern climes, exposed to the wild winds 
of winter, droops and fades ; the bird which might 
expand its wings and soar and sing beneath the sum- 
mer's sud, shrinks from the autumnal blast. We do 
think of Felicia Hemans tenderly, affectionately, 

" As of a wand'rer whose home is found, 
As of a bird from its chain unbound." 

The song is ceased ; the harp is broken ; yes — 
even according to the words, which she herself said 
might be her epitaph : 

" Fermossi al fin il cor cbe balzo tanto." * 

* It has at last stopped, that heart which beat so fast. 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 93 

It is difficult to think of Mrs. Hemans in prose ; 
verse seems the more appropriate vehicle for thoughts 
on this gifted woman. 

She passed as a glorious thing, 

A thing of life and light, 
Of music and high imagining 

Through this world of care and night. 
Her's was the quick keen glance, 

And hers the fine- strung ear, 
And the heart which poetic dreams entrance, 

And to which those dreams are dear. 
The mountain's frowning steep, 

The darkly rolling flood, 
And the bounding waves of the foaming deep, 

Were friends of her solitude. 
She knew the voice they spake, 

And her spirit's deep reply 
From her burning lips in rapture brake, 

And glowed in her speaking eye. 
Light, music, sunshine beamed 

O'er her brief and flow'ry way, 
And war-swords clashed and banners streamed. 

While she poured her thrilling lay. 
The dream was bright — 'tis past, 

My dirge is of the dead, 
And a voice is borne on the lonely blast, 

As near her grave I tread. 
To me is the solemn strain, 

It bids me not linger here, 
For earthly glories are short and vain, 

And eternal things are near. 



94 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

We speak of Mrs. Hemans as a poet ; if it fell 
within our present scope, we might rejoice in the 
thought that in the latter years of her life, her 
mind opened to the grand realities of the Christian 
religion. And the effect was felt upon her genius. 
She became deeper and truer. Had this change 
taken place in earlier life, there might have 
been fewer flowers, but there would have been 
more fruit ; the defects which are felt in her poetry, 
a certain sameness of style and a repetition of 
ideas, would have been avoided, because there 
would have been a wider range for thought and 
feeling. Oh, if Felicia Hemans had always, to 
use her own words, ' sat at the feet of the Redeemer, 
and listened to the music of his voice,' how potent 
would have been her influence upon our literature ! 
Far from us be one word of lamentation, one thought 
of censure. " Who art thou that judgest another 
man's servant ? To his own master he standeth 
or falleth." Rather would we take up the note of 
triumphant joy, rejoicing over England's bright 
daughter of song as one, who in her latter years, 
found a refuge where her beating heart could re- 
pose, and as one, who having departed this life 
in the faith and fear of Christ, is now, where 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 95 

" the wicked cease from troubling, and where the 
weary are at rest." 

' A literary life/ said L. E. L., ' is not a happy 
one for a woman.' She was herself, an example 
of this truth. With greater power of conception 
than Mrs. Hemans, and greater force of diction, Miss 
Landon was less musical in her versification, and less 
happy in the direction of her talents. One great 
misfortune for the permanency of her fame, was that 
she began to write too early. A certain degree of 
facility is thus attained, which is often a bar to the 
attainment of real excellence. Those persons who 
are acquainted with Italian literature, will recollect 
how much trouble Metastasio had to break off the 
bad habits of versification, which he had acquired as 
an improvisatore. And in addition to this, Miss 
Landon entered too early on a literary career. By 
the force of talent she accomplished much, but had 
it been duly matured and cultured, she might have 
done much more. Poor L. E. L. ! Her own lines 
written, in very early youth, on burning a love- 
letter, recur to the mind. 

" So bright at first, so dark at last, 
I feared it was love's history.] 

Alas ! it was her own history ! So very bright 



96 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

and glowing in commencement, but how dark a 
cloud hangs over her last moments ! It is not for 
mortal eye to attempt to pierce through that cloud ; 
for mortal hand to lift that shrouding veil. Did 
this gifted creature of feeling and passionate senti- 
ment find the rest for which she once breathed such 
earnest aspirations ? We transcribe the lines to 
which we allude, and which are among the most 
beautiful their author ever wrote, without presuming 
to give an answer. 

" Sweet friend, the world is yet with me, 
Its vanity, its care ; 
Vain hopes for things that may not be, 
Regrets for those that are. 

This cannot last ! I will believe 

That I shall learn to know, 
A hope that will not all deceive, 

A trust not placed below. 

I needs must weep — I fain would pray 

For light athwart the gloom ; 
One promise of that holier day 

Whose morning is the tomb ! " 

It would be a sad chasm for an Englishwoman 
to write on poetry and poetesses, and to omit the 
honoured name of Joanna Baillie. Sir Walter 
Scott, her dear and intimate friend, in his discus- 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 97 

sions on the present state of the poetic art in Eng- 
land, used always to maintain that Joanna Baillie is 
the first poetic genius of the day. Her power 
is indeed extraordinary ; the laurel- wreath is firmly 
fixed upon her brow, and there is no fear that its 
leaves will wither. As a dramatic writer, properly 
so called, she cannot take a high standing, from 
her apparently utter inability to conduct a plot; 
and the undue prominence given to one passion in 
her ' Plays on the Passions' is unfortunate, because 
it is unnatural. De Montfort is probably her~master- 
piece. The diction, the poetry are splendid ; her 
command over language, and the wide range of her 
poetic vocabulary are wonderful. She appears, as 
might have been expected, to excel in the de- 
lineation of female character. What can be more 
beautiful than the character of Jane de Montfort ? 
so devoted to her brother, so excellent in conduct, so 
respected by all around. Mrs. Baillie has the greater 
merit in the delineation of this character, as the idea 
of introducing an unmarried lady of mature age 
into a tragedy for admiration, appears to be original, 
and the object too is attained. We can make 
but very cursory remarks. In Romiero, the cha- 
racter of Zorayda is beautifully drawn ; her death 



98 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

scene is very touching. When killed by her hus- 
band, her final words, 

" Thou art pardoned, Love ! " 
are certainly much to be preferred, in a moral point 
of view, to Desdemona's falsehood in similar circum- 
stances. One of the most powerful scenes that Mrs. 
Baillie ever wrote, is in Henriquez, but, (the charge 
may seem a grave one,) it is not consistent with high 
morality, that so much admiration should be ex- 
pended upon a man who has committed so horrid a 
crime as murder, simply because he delivers himself 
up to justice. A similar remark may be applied to 
the character of Edmund Arden in ' The Stripling/ 
A murderer is a murderer ; let sympathy never 
be so awakened as to diminish our horror of 
the crime on which God has placed his awful 
stigma. We are quite sure that it would be the 
desire of this remarkable woman to devote the 
powers with which she is endowed to the cause 
of justice and humanity ; and, without lifting the 
veil which hangs over private life, and making per- 
sonal allusions to daily employments, no one can 
read her works without feeling that they emanate 
from a kind and benevolent heart. We cannot 
however withhold our sentiments, as to the tendency 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 99 

of some passages without doing violence to sincerity. 
The Socinian tenets of this gifted lady are deeply to 
be regretted. * The Martyr' is perhaps the drama 
which evidences them most strongly, especially the 
last scene ; but throughout her works, the want of 
pure religion is felt. There is one of Mrs. Baillie's 
dramas which floats over the memory as a beautiful 
dream : we refer to the ' Beacon.' The characters, 
the poetry, and more especially the lyrical poetry, 
are all most beautiful. The subject is hope; the 
finale is exquisitely managed ; and the closing words 
respecting hope, rest on the memory and the heart. 

" It bears the warrior onward through the field, 
It bears the saint to heaven." 

It is time, however, to descend to the practical 
application of the subject. A distinguished poet* 
of our own country and times, has said, that, if 
he knows his own heart, he would rather write 
one little hymn which might find an echo in 
a Christian breast, than be the author of Para- 
dise Lost. Most entirely do we subscribe to hi* 
words. We would be utilitarians even as it re- 
gards poetry ; for we do hold most strongly that 



100 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

every gift of God has some appointed end. It 

is to be improved and employed in the service of 

the gracious Giver, under the sense that a reckoning 

will he kept, and a strict account will have to he 

given. We know perfectly that 

" God doth not need 
Either man's work or his own gifts ; " 

yet still he chooses to be honoured by them, and 
the word to every servant is, " Occupy till I 
come." There is one sphere of labour which has 
been little entered upon, and which is pecu- 
liarly suited to women. We mean poetry for 
children. Let none smile in contemptuous scorn. 
To write a library for children is a task of which 
the highest philosopher might be proud, and it re- 
quires, we would almost say, particular power of 
imagination, to descend from the lofty eminence of 
adult life, to enter into the real feelings of a 
little child, and to give expression to them. We 
may not turn from our main subject to descant 
on the beauties of Dr. Watts's Hvnins for 
children, but we may be allowed to mention 
with affectionate respect the names of Mrs. Gilbert 
and Jane Taylor. Almost every religiously edu- 
cated child in England knows the ■ Hymns for 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 101 

Infant Minds ;' and every child who knows them 
loves them. This is the true test of their excel- 
lence. Montgomery, in his • Lectures on Poetry,' 
bestows very high praise on these ' Hymns/ and 
considers that they give evidence of power, which 
might have assigned to the authors a distinguished 
place on the roll of poetic fame. He instances, 
with high eulogium, the simplicity and success 
with which two very abstract ideas are brought 
down to the level of a child's mind ; the omnipre- 
sence of the Deity in these lines, 

" If I could find some cave unknown, 

Where human foot has never trod, 
Yet there, I could not be alone, 

On every side there would be God." 

And eternity, that deep, that awful idea, how beau- 
tifully and simply is it conveyed in the following 
verse ! 

" Days, months, and years must have an end, 

Eternity has none ; 
1 'Twill always have as long to spend 

As when it first begun." 

We would not, of course, limit poetry for children 
to the expression of religious ideas, although we 
hold strongly that religion should imbue the whole. 
The wide field of nature opens before the eye of a 



102 POETRY AND POETESSES. 

little child ; its emotions in gazing on that 
field are true poetry. Perhaps some women gifted 
with poetic power may yet arise, to give further 
utterance to those feelings, so as to bestow per- 
manence on the first ebullitions of early admira- 
tion. Children love animated poetry ; poetry that 
mirrors back their own feelings and thoughts. 
From a great deal that is written for them they 
turn away, and they are right. Sentiments of 
patriotism and of loyalty may also be imparted 
to children in a few stirring and animated stanzas, 
and poetry of this kind is much wanted in our 
nursery literature. It must be poetry ; mere rhyme 
will not answer the end. Descriptions too of noble 
and generous feeling, not in men and women with 
whom they have little sympathy, and whom they 
imagine to be removed to an immense distance 
from them, but in children like themselves, may 
touch secret springs in the heart, which may vibrate 
at a distant day. 

We have said enough, perhaps more than enough 
for these useful-knowledge days, when, however, 
poetry is more required than ever, to prevent our 
sinking into materialism. We need not ask where 
the poet finds his themes ; there are themes every 



POETRY AND POETESSES. 103 

where ; themes suited to the powers of man, aye, 
and of woman too. There need be no violent op- 
position of colouring ; no want of true harmony ; 
for rightly managed, 

" Each gives to each a double charm, 
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm." 



VII. 



LETTER-WRITING. 



We descend from poetry to the common concerns 
of life ; from sporting and fluttering in the fields 
of air, in order to take our stand on solid ground 
amid the ordinary occupations of our fellow creatures. 
We are about to consider what has always been 
held to be one of the strong-holds for females in 
literature. The opinion of Dugald Stewart on this 
subject has already been cited ; and it is impos- 
sible to deny, that for certain branches of epis- 
tolary correspondence, women have advantages 
which men do not possess. 

The truth appears to be that for what is light and 
elegant, the news of the day, and all the gentle 
feelings of the heart, women will be found in gene- 



LETTER-WRITING. 105 

ral to excel. Subjects which require to be touched 
with the lightness of a flying pen, or else the bloom 
and freshness would be struck from them ; feelings 
which would hardly interest the lofty mind of man, 
but which are breathed into life in the delicate heart 
of woman ; all the minutiae of common life, which 
man looks at and passes by, must be told, if told at 
all, in the words and by the pen of a gentle and 
amiable woman. No man could have written the 
letters of Madame de Sevigne, the queen of letter- 
writers. Nothing can be more graceful and elegant 
in a literary point of view, than her letters to her 
daughter. For that beloved daughter, she lived ; 
we might almost say she lived in her, for she seemed 
to feel with instinctive penetration all her feelings, 
to read all that was passing in her heart. We are 
not called upon to pass our judgment on this ex- 
clusive, or if you will, extravagant affection ; we 
are speaking of Madame de Sevigne as a literary 
character, not as a religious one. At one period, 
she seems to have written to her daughter almost 
daily ; it was at once the business of her life and 
its delight. Every thing that could interest and 
amuse Madame de Grignan in her distant residence 
in Provence was scrupulously collected, and detailed 



106 LETTER WRITING. 

with elegance and spirit. The letters of Madame 
de Sevigne give an excellent picture of the court of 
Louis XIV, and of the times in which she lived, but 
this is not their greatest charm. It is their per- 
fect, exquisite simplicity. We see through them 
into the heart of the writer. Nothing is done for 
effect ; all is nature and feeling. We entirely be- 
lieve her own statement, that she wrote just what 
offered itself to her mind ; whatever came to the 
point of her pen ; and that she had no idea in be- 
ginning her letter, whether it would be a long one 
or a short one. Madame de Sevigne, in more res- 
pects than one, resembles a poet whose productions 
she appreciated and loved ; the equally remarkable 
La Fontaine. Like him, most rapid in mingling 
with the greatest naivete, moral reflexions with nar- 
rative details, she is also, like him, most unconsci- 
ous of her own excellence. She wrote for her 
daughter, thought and felt for her daughter, breathed 
the warmest feelings of her heart, the fond expres- 
sions of a mother's love into her daughter's bosom, 
and little dreamed, never for one moment thought, 
of others beyond her child. We do not claim for 
Madame de Sevigne the eulogium pronounced on 



LETTER-WRITING. 107 

a female worthy, by Pope, in one of his epitaphs, 
that she 

" No glory sought, but not to be admired ; " 

an eulogium on which the grave Dr. Johnson has 
not disdained to cite a female opinion, as to its 
being extravagant ; we claim for this literary favou- 
rite a far higher praise, a more distinguished ex- 
cellence; she never thought of being admired. 
Had one such idea crossed her mind, she would 
not have been what she is. We can imagine no 
one more astonished than Madame de Sevigne, if 
she could return to life, and find that her letters 
are the admiration of posterity, and enjoy an hon- 
ourable place amid the classics of her country. 

The literary acquirements of Madame de Sevigne 
have frequently been too much depreciated. It is 
probable from her letters that she knew something 
of Latin, though we subscribe to the obvious truth, 
that the felicitous application of a well-known pas- 
sage in Virgil, and her occasional reference to 
Latin phrases, are by no means sufficient vouchers. 
Of her attainments in Italian, we have more 
satisfactory evidence, since she herself speaks of 
enjoying the beauties of Tasso, and of her 



108 LETTER-WRITING. 

intention to read Guicciardini, in order not to 
leave Italian literature. It is said, that both she 
and Madame de Grignan were fond of metaphy- 
sical studies, and were familiar with the writings of 
Des Cartes. At all events, as the intimate friend 
of La Rochefoucault, admitted to daily and fami- 
liar intercourse with that distinguished man, Ma- 
dame de Sevigne must have been in the constant 
habit of hearing intellectual subjects discussed in 
an intellectual manner, and without being aware of it, 
her own mind must thus have derived improvement 
and strength. Every female writer, (Madame de 
Sevigne did not suspect herself to be a writer, but 
the passing remark may be pardoned,) ought to 
have some literary friend of the opposite sex. We 
do not think of Madame de Sevigne as an autho- 
ress ; nothing of the kind ; she was an amiable and a 
very agreeable woman ; her conversation must have 
been fascinating ; one could have lived with her and 
loved her. 

We have no Madame de Sevigne in our literature ; 
the only name we can oppose is that of the Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu, and she was as different 
a person as can be easily imagined. Lady 
Mary was a woman of remarkably strong intellect ; 



LETTER- WRITING. 109 

a woman of almost masculine mind. Her powers 
were highly cultivated ; for though it does not ap- 
pear to be true that she received a classical educa- 
tion, (she speaks of her own education as one of 
the worst imaginable, and Lady Bute, her daughter, 
always said that her mother had taught herself 
Latin,) yet the important acquisition of Latin was 
made at an early age, and was diligently used and 
improved throughout life. Lady Mary seems to 
have had an extraordinary facility in learning lan- 
guages, and we have compositions from her pen in 
both French and Italian, which give evidence of 
her command over those languages. She had a 
good head ; she could turn over a subject in her 
mind, sit down and display it in its varied bear- 
ings. She was not deficient in heart, but the heart 
was not with her the governing principle, her powers 
of mind being sufficient to control her feelings. 
Her letters to her daughter Lady Bute, to whom 
she was evidently much attached, are as different as 
possible from those of Madame de Sevigne to her 
darling child ; her ' belle Comtesse ; ' whom in the 
fond pride of a mother's heart, she seemed to con- 
sider as unique among women. Lady Mary did 
not understand Madame de Sevigne, and no one can 



110 LETTER-WRITING. 

wonder at it ; but we cannot help suspecting that 
there was some latent, lurking feeling of womanish 
rivalry, when she stigmatized Madame de Sevigne's 
letters as the ' tittle-tattle of an old nurse.' The 
censure was, as is often the case, more dishonoura- 
ble to the person who spoke, than the person against 
whom it was levelled ; an unfounded stigma 

" Like a devilish engine, 
Back recoils upon itself." 

There was another point of difference. Madame 
de Sevigne, as we have seen, wrote her letters 
without any thought of observation ; she was a 
beauty in dishabille. Not so Lady Mary. ■ Keep 
my letters,' she says to her daughter ; ' in forty years 
they will be as entertaining as Madame de 
Sevigne's.' And in some respects she was not 
wrong. What can be more graphic and interest- 
ing than her account of the court of Constanti- 
nople ? She unites the force of a male with the 
lightness of a female pen ; and the acknowledged 
accuracy of the details gives value to her observa- 
tions. One point of contrast more, and we have 
done. Madame de Sevigne was, as we have seen, 
a very amiable, agreeable person ; one who would 
be pleasant and popular in society, and affectionate 



LETTER-WRITING. 



Ill 



in the domestic circle. Now we do not mean to 
say that Lady Mary was an ill-tempered person ; 
on the contrary, her domestics and dependents 
appear to have been exceedingly attached to her, 
and whatever kind of judge a valet de chambre 
may be of the valour of a hero, a waiting maid is 
certainly a very competent one as to the temper 
of her mistress. But her Ladyship was highly 
sarcastic ; she could not, by any considerations, be 
restrained from playing off her artillery of wit ; 
and if, for every good sarcasm, she made, on a 
moderate computation, ten enemies, we cannot 
feel surprised that she had at last a nest of hornets 
buzzing about her ears. She was not, however, a 
person to be stung to death by them ; her wit still 
flashed onwards, and it was not mere sheet light- 
ning ; it was felt where it fell. There is a good 
deal of truth in those lines of Lord Lyttleton ad- 
dressed to a lady, and they are not inapplicable to 
characters such as Lady Mary. 

" Nor make to dangerous wit a vain pretence, 
But wisely rest content with common sense ; 
For wit, like wine, intoxicates the brain, 
Too strong for feeble woman to sustain." 

Lady Mary was however, no ' feeble woman;' but 

it is not improbable, by her amusing summary of the 



112 LETTER-WRITING. 

' advice,' * that she winced under one or two strokes 
of his Lordship's pen. We can hardly imagine 
Lady Mary as quite agreeable in society ; she was 
more a person to be feared and admired than 
loved. Witness her own account of a dull party 
at Padua ; how a set of persons clustered together 
to give her advice ; (they must have been egregious 
specimens of human stupidity to make such 
an attempt ;) how she, with unconcerned coolness, 
quietly smoked a card over the candle while 
the orations were being made, and then after 
writing on it with the corner of another card, 
flung it on the table, with the following verse 
for the edification of her spontaneous counsel- 
lors. 

" If ever I one thought bestow 
On what such fools advise, 
May I be dull enough to grow 
Most miserably wise !'' 

This was enough to raise a commotion not to be 
allayed in half a century; but thoughts of this kind 
never gave Lady Mary any concern. She was dis- 
posed rather to stir up wind and storm, like iEolus, 

* Summary of Lord Lyttleton's 'Advice to a Lady.' 
Be sober in your dress, don't make a riot, 
In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet. 



LETTER-WRITING. 113 

than to allay that storm like the placid Neptune, 
She appears to considerable advantage in her corres- 
pondence with Pope. Her letters are those of a woman 
of sense and mind, who wrote without undue care ; 
and there is no affectation whatever about her, for 
to that weakness she was quite superior. Pope's 
letters in reply are the most studied, artificial, ful- 
some compositions that can be imagined. They are 
worse than Balzac's or Voiture's ; we can only 
wonder how Lady Mary had patience to read 
them. Lady Mary's own style of writing is ex- 
cellent ; she thought clearly, and expressed her- 
self forcibly. There was little of the woman about 
her, yet we see something of it in one of her latest 
letters to Lady Bute, dated in the year 1758, where- 
in she tells her daughter that to spare herself mor- 
tification, (she was then about sixty-eight years of 
age,) she had not looked in a glass for eleven years. 
This might be said in joke, but it does not appear 
to be so. 

The letters of women are generally considered 
as being too diffuse, and as wanting point. One 
of the best letters, however, in the English language 
as it regards fulness, brevity and force, w 7 as written 
by a lady. It would have done honour to a Spartan. 
i 



114 LETTER-WRITING. 

We refer to the well-known letter of the celebrated 
Countess of Pembroke to Sir Joseph Williamson, 
secretary of state, who had presumed to nominate 
a candidate for the borough of Appleby. 

' I have been bullied by an usurper ; I have been 
neglected by a court ; but I will not be dictated 
to by a subject. Your man shan't stand. 

Anne, Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery.' 

We must, however, descend from the merely 
literary consideration of the subject to its daily de- 
tails, and practical bearings. 

Now it is not difficult to write an amusing let- 
ter, a pleasant letter, or even what, in common 
parlance, is styled a well-expressed letter. It is 
not very difficult to write a clever letter, though it is 
highly disagreeable to receive one of these laboured 
compositions. But it is very difficult to write a 
really good letter ; and it is in this, that the female 
letter-writers of our own day often fail. In order 
to accomplish it, it is necessary to consider a sub- 
ject fully, and then to see how it can be expressed 
most briefly and most clearly, not spending many 
words upon a few ideas, but endeavouring to clothe 
the ideas which are to be expressed, in as few words 



LETTER-WRITING. 115 

as possible. The language should be simple and 
natural, and generally speaking, the words which 
first offer themselves are the best. The words 
should be suited to the thoughts ; the dress should 
fit tightly, and not hang round the ideas like a 
lady's loose gown. 

There is, at present, too much letter-writing ; 
especially among ladies. Time and power which 
might be much more usefully employed, are thus 
consumed. The writing of letters is quite the 
business of some ladies' lives ; their only real em- 
ployment during the day. If we could consider it 
as a merely neutral kind of employment that does 
neither good nor harm, we might acquiesce in all 
this letter- writing, on the principle that it employs 
those who might be doing worse things. But this 
is standing on very low ground, and the truth is, 
no employment, however trifling, is strictly neutral. 
It has either a beneficial or an injurious effect, as it 
regards others, and as it regards our own character.. 
And in the species of letter- writing to which we 
now refer, there are concomitant evils of a very 
serious nature. There is no occasion to dwell on 
the varied evils of newsmongering written and spo- 
ken ; we would rather turn to some of the evils which 
i 2 



116 LETTER-WRITING. 

affect the individual letter-writer's own character. 
Among these is a strong temptation to insincerity. 
Hyperbolical expressions of affection, which are 
acquired in those precious seminaries of educa- 
tion, yclept boarding-schools, are, as almost every 
one's experience can bear witness, unsparingly 
sprinkled over the satin note-paper, by the light 
pen which is held in the jewelled hand of a fair 
lady. Do these expressions emanate from the head, 
the heart, or the mere memory ? If they merely 
bubble forth from the well-stocked memory, what 
must be the effect upon the character of using such 
strong expressions, when they are altogether unfelt ? 
We have graver charges than these. In what 
is called the religious world, there are palpable 
evils connected with letter-writing. Persons will 
enter into what is called a religious correspondence, 
professing to open the feelings of the heart, and to 
detail what is sometimes called their ' experience' 
to each other ; and in some cases, such a corres- 
pondence may be useful. But in the majority of 
cases, the parties might certainly be better em- 
ployed. ' I have no doubt,' says the gay Bussy 
Rabutin to his cousin, when she wrote to him 
during her temporary residence in a convent after 



LETTER-WRITING. 117 

having been much in gay society, ■ I have no 
doubt that you would rather talk to others than to 
me, but I also know that you would rather talk to 
me than to God.' There is a lesson in this for 
the heart of many who call themselves Christians, 
and who would rather spend an hour in writing a 
letter about the evils of their hearts and lives to 
some earthly friend, than one sixth of that time in 
communion with their Saviour. The words of the 
poet are most just and applicable. 

" Were half the breath thus vainly spent, 
To heaven in supplication sent, 
Your cheerful song would oftener be, 
Hear what the Lord has done for me." 

It is very tempting to talk about ourselves ; it is 
' a subject on which all are fluent, but few elo- 
quent ; ' but it is very dangerous to the moral cha- 
racter. When we speak of ourselves, we are stand- 
ing on the edge of a precipice, and it is well if we 
escape a heavy fall. There is no humility in 
egotism ; though there is a desperate straining after 
it, in that egotism which descants upon its own 
faults and follies. And while these long details 
are being made, these folio letters concocted, are 
there no duties neglected ? and at all events, if these 



118 LETTER-WRITING. 

whirlpools of time were resolutely abandoned, 
might not the sphere of duty be extended ? Let 
it ever be remembered that every one is bound to 
do, not only the good that lies before him in his 
daily path, and which he cannot pass over without 
manifest dereliction of duty, but all the good in 
his power. In saying this, we do not go one step 
beyond the apostolical injunction ; " To him that 
knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is 
sin." 

But we have not quite done with our charges 
against contemporary female religious letter-writers. 
Are their productions always penned with the idea 
that they will be strictly confined to the individual 
to whom they are addressed ? We dare not an- 
swer in the affirmative, neither dare we hold up to 
public view, all the evils which a negative answer 
would suggest. We leave the subject to the prac- 
tical consideration of our readers. We have had 
so much, the last few years, of unlocking private 
desks, and searching scrutoires, and publishing 
private (°) letters, and private (?) diaries for the 
public benefit, that really the taste is becoming vitia- 
ted, and if things go on as they have begun, we shall 
shortly, at least among the educated classes, have 



LETTER-WRITING. 1 1 9 

to bid adieu to those all-important features of the 
Christian character, " simplicity and godly since- 
rity." Private confidence has often been betrayed 
in the publication of letters ; private honour has 
been violated. Now sin brings its own punish- 
ment; we need not refer to Bishop Butler to prove 
that the punishment is often a consequence, nay, 
even an effect of the sin. On the subject to which 
we allude, we ask with confidence, has the good 
effected been at all commensurate with the evil ? 

' I have written with my own hand,' said a 
Frenchwoman writing to her husband, ' that you 
alone may read it.' This is the right feeling with 
which a letter should be written, and no woman of 
true delicacy of feeling would knowingly enter on 
her list of friends that individual, however high 
in religious profession, fervent in religious zeal, or 
fluent in religious talk, who would commit the im- 
propriety, the shameful breach of confidence, of 
shewing a confidential letter on religious subjects 
to a third individual, even though that individual 
be a mutual friend. Perhaps the letters of Madame 
de Stael, if they had been collected and published, 
especially those to her father, would have excelled 
in eloquence and interest all her writings, and 



120 LETTER-WRITING. 

would have placed her character in a clearer and 
fuller point of view ; but we honour, from the depth 
of the heart, the feeling and the delicacy which 
prevented their publication. And we would that 
the same feeling pervaded the religious world at this 
time in England. 

It will be a matter of deep regret, if any thing 
advanced in this chapter, inspire any one with the 
vain and foolish ambition of writing a clever or a 
witty letter. Every well-informed Englishwoman 
should be capable of writing a plain, distinct letter, 
clearly expressed, distinctly written, correctly spelt, 
and accurately punctuated ; a letter, on which, in 
short, no censure need be passed. There are two 
chief points to be considered ; the French will sup- 
ply us with terms, for they call them, ' lefonds et la 
forme.' The former, it is evident, must depend on 
individual capacity and power ; but for any woman 
of ordinary education to err in the latter respect, is 
inexcusable. The Spectator, in his day, tells us 
that he was in the habit of receiving epistolary com- 
munications both from ladies and gentlemen, and 
that the letters of the ladies were, in the aggregate, 
decidedly the better, both as it regarded phraseology 
and orthography. These are by -gone days. As far 



LETTER-WRITING. 121 

as a limited individual experience goes, the point 
most neglected by our present lady -letter-writers is 
punctuation. Stops were introduced into reading 
and writing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and 
a very great improvement it was considered, and a 
great, aid towards understanding the meaning of an 
author ; but certainly, in the reign of Queen Vic- 
toria, these useful little marks are by no means in 
general use among the female division of her Ma- 
jesty's subjects. The mistakes which arise from this 
source are often puzzling, not unfrequently ludicrous. 
In speaking against professedly religious corres- 
pondence, we would guard our meaning against 
mistake. Letters may be something more than 
the necessary vehicles of communication between 
distant friends. On this point no sumptuary law 
can be passed ; we would not cut off the amenities 
and elegances of life, any more than we would 
pluck the leaves from the vine, because they are not 
the fruit. It is only against the abuse and the ex- 
cess that we argue. And while pointing out, and 
we would do so as forcibly as possible, the danger 
of sitting down in the fixed resolution to write ' a 
religious letter,' (the resolution may not be openly 
expressed, but it is silently felt,) we do hold, most 



122 LETTER-WRITING. 

strenuously hold, that every thing which a Chris- 
tian does, should be done in a Christian spirit, with 
a Christian aim. There may be the animation of 
Christian feeling in writing, when that feeling is 
not embodied in exact words ; the under-current of 
thought may direct every expression, while it is 
itself only perceptible to the responsive principle 
within ; even as in one of the inspired writings, 
the book of Esther, all is referable to the glory 
of God, though the name of God is never men- 
tioned. It is an important consideration that what 
is written remains. Perhaps we ought never to sit 
down to write, even the shortest note, without en- 
treating the Spirit of God to direct our pens. We 
need the influences of the Holy Spirit for evanes- 
cent conversation ; words make no line in the air ; 
they are winged from the lips, and after striking 
the ear, perish, not as though they had never been, 
for they often live for years in human memory, 
and we know that all are noted down in vivid rea- 
lity before Him who shall judge the quick and the 
dead. But written words have, even to human eye, 
a visible existence ; and by them, even in this life, 
we are often either justified or condemned. Is it 
not possible so to write that our words shall be 



LETTER-WRITING. 123 

1 always with grace, seasoned with salt ? ' Reli- 
gion, as John Newton said of Calvinism, ought 
like sugar in a cup of tea, to sweeten the whole 
beverage, but it ought not to lie in an undissolved 
lump at the bottom. 

Amid the mountains of South America are rivu- 
lets of water, which, flowing through the gold mines, 
become strongly impregnated with that precious 
metal, and thousands of poor people, men, women, 
and children, are employed in collecting the par- 
ticles. Such should be the letters of a Christian 
woman ; more or less impregnated according to cir- 
cumstances, they should still glow with the pure 
and sparkling riches, the " gold tried in the fire," 
which she has received from her Saviour, and they 
should enrich all with whom she comes in contact. 
Letter-writing may be a powerful instrument of 
great good ; advice, instruction, comfort, admoni- 
tion, reproof, may all be thus conveyed. If Chris- 
tian women were but faithful to their principles, 
and earnest in the employment of their talents, O 
what a land this realm of England might become ! 
We entertain no extravagant thoughts of ' woman's 
mission,' but we yield to none in our sense of 
woman's responsibility. 



VIII. 



NARRATIVE. 



Narrative may be considered, as dividiDg itself 
into three branches, history, biography, and ficti- 
tious narrative, and we will consider it under these 
separate heads. 

Although history is one of the most useful stu- 
dies which a woman can pursue, her powers of 
mind are hardly fitted to enter this field for the 
sake of instructing others. To her own mind, it 
is most improving and important to follow the 
course of events, to trace the under-current of cause 
and effect, to observe as from a gallery the real 
nature of actions, to estimate the real worth of cha- 
racters, and to have her judgment strengthened 
by being exercised on subjects in which her feel- 
ings are not so strongly called forth as to warp her 



NARRATIVE. 125 

decisions. And this point we would strenuously 
maintain, that it is not that woman is, in ordinary 
cases, deficient in judgment ; it is that her feelings 
usurp the seat of judgment, and she is carried away 
by their power. She feels keenly, and then decides 
promptly, instead of calmly weighing facts and 
deciding upon evidence. The very reasons which 
make the study of history beneficial to her, are 
reasons dissuasive from her ever attempting to be 
an historian. 

We have had one female historian in England, 
Mrs. Catharine Macaulay. Not being professional 
reviewers, we cannot give an opinion of a work 
that we have not read ; for we do not profess to step 
beyond ordinary human power. 

We do know that Catharine Macaulay began 
her literary career as an historian ; that the first 
volume of her work, • The History of England 
from James I. to the Brunswick Line,' was pub- 
lished in 1763; the eighth in 1783. She seems 
to have trod the same ground twice over, for we 
find in the list of her works, another book bearing 
the title of* History of England from the Revolution 
to the present time, in a series of Letters to a Friend,' 
(the Rev. Dr. Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster,) 



126 NARRATIVE. 

1778. Mrs. Hannah More in one of her letters, 
speaks of Mrs. Macaulay as having nothing of the 
woman about her, but as being only ' a tolerably 
clever man/ and this description seems to suit very- 
well with all that we hear of this lady. She came 
booted and spurred to her public career; a free- 
thinker, or what in modern phraseology is styled a 
liberal ; and her works are said to be strongly imbued 
with democratical and infidel principles. Alas, for 
woman when she forgets that Christianity has 
raised her to the place which she occupies in so- 
ciety ; and that if she attempts to take one stone 
from its glorious temple, she is undermining the 
foundation of her own peace, respectability and 
usefulness ! A statue of Mis. Macaulay in the 
character of the Goddess of Liberty, was erected 
by Dr. "Wilson, during her life-time, in the chancel 
of his church at Walbrook ; it was afterwards 
taken down, but it is difficult to say whether the 
erection of it was more disgraceful to the clergy- 
man or to the lady. We may appear to write with 
severity. A degree of courteous regard is due and 
is paid to ladies in literature, and is extended to 
their memory ; but Mrs. Macaulay, in laying aside 
the amiable weaknesses of her sex, forfeited her 



NARRATIVE. 127 

claim to its privileges. She and her friend Mary 
Wolstonecraft seem to have been a pair of true 
Amazons ; happily their deportment was not suffi- 
ciently winning to lead any to desire to follow their 
example. Female warriors are never very interest- 
ing beings, and all the art of Tasso and Ariosto 
cannot make us fall in love with them. And 
the he-shes of literature, (let the colloquial fami- 
liarity of the expression for once pass muster,) 
are quite as little likely to gain our affections. 
Whatever may be the talents and the energies of a 
woman, (and let those talents and energies be faith- 
fully improved and employed,) they must be 
shaded by sweetness, veiled by modesty, or else 
much of what the eye looks for, and the heart ex- 
pects in woman will be wanting. Learning in fe- 
males is not surely always like salt to cherries,* 
but assumption and arrogance most assuredly are. 
We leave Mrs. Macaulay to her unenvied niche 

* See, ' The Salted Cherry,' by Professor Carlyle, a poem 
intended to be written in the fly leaf of the ' Rights of Wo- 
man. 1 Bertha, the learned lady, after defending learning, 
by this maxim, ' Whate'er is excellent per se can never be 
misplaced,' is invited to a feast by Oberon, king of the fairies. 
Just as she is going to regale on some cherries which had 
been recently brought into Europe by Lucullus, she is startled 



128 NARRATIVE. 

in the temple of Fame ; better, far better to be the 
humblest cottager, nay, the starving inmate of a 
work-house, than to have the awful responsibility 
of misapplied talents, and abused powers. 

The humbler walk of Biography is less unfitted 
to feminine power, though some of the remarks 
made with respect to the difficulty of writing his- 
tory, will apply to this department also. When 
the biographer is contemporary with the person 
whose life is written, the facts recorded, (if the writer 
be truthful and honest,) are likely to be authen- 
tic, but the difficulty lies in selecting them, so 
as to give a. full portrait of the individual. Phre- 
nologists tell us, that the character is to be estimated, 
not by particular organs, but by a general view of 
the whole of the head, taking into account the rela- 
tive effect of the different organs, how one either 
neutralizes another, or tends to increase its power. 
How this may be in phrenology we know not, but 

by a shower of salt on her plate. She remonstrates — Oberon 
smiling, parodies her own words. 

" Know that the sages all agree 
Whate'er is excellent per se, 
Can never be misplaced." 
The lady took the hint ; 

" Her books forsook, the shuttle threw. 
And in a month was married." 



NARRATIVE. 129 

we are sure that it is so in the estimate of human 
character. This comprehensive estimate is very dif- 
ficult for woman to make, but yet, if it be not made, 
very erroneous impressions may be given of a cha- 
racter. In the biographies compiled and sent forth 
to the public, erroneous views are undoubtedly 
often given ; not intentionally, (for we would 
speak of those who write honestly and uprightly, 
and there are honesty and uprightness in litera- 
ture as in everything else,) but from defective- 
ness in survey, and from want of comprehensive- 
ness. The apparent inconsistencies in the charac- 
ters of Shakespeare, which have, by superficial ob- 
servers, sometimes been objected against that dra- 
matist, are among the strongest proofs of his con- 
summate knowledge of the human heart. It is a 
rule as old as Aristotle, that any character which is 
either perfectly good or perfectly wicked, is not 
dramatic, as our sympathies are not engaged for 
such beings. It would be well if our biographers 
would remember, that in veiling the defects of their 
heroes and heroines, they not only give us a partial 
and distorted portraiture, but they actually lower the; 
interest of their work, sometimes, to say the truth, 
below zero. Besides this, our confidence is shaken, 

E 



130 NARRATIVE. 

and we do not give credit for the possession of such 
unbalanced excellence by any frail heir of humanity. 
The evil of giving an over-estimate of excellence, 
and a partial view of character, is one to which con- 
temporary female biographers, in the plenitude of 
admiration, are particularly exposed, and instances 
of the truth of the assertion are unfortunately so 
numerous, as not to render it necessary to adduce 
any. 

When the subject of the biography has not been 
a contemporary, but is removed by the distance of 
years or of centuries, the difficulty that offers itself 
is of another kind. The patient investigation of 
records ; the examination of concurring and differ- 
ing testimonies with a view to the eliciting of truth ; 
a correct estimate of the value of testimony ; a care- 
ful weighing of evidence ; a cool, calm, patient, ab 
extra consideration of the parts and of the whole 
of the character ; a laying aside of previous preju- 
dices, whether those prejudices be national, literary, 
educational or feminine ; a real love of truth, and 
determination to follow her, even though she lead 
to the precise point to which we do not wish to go ; 
a deep knowledge of the human heart so as to test 
the probability of facts ; a fair acquaintance with 



NARRATIVE. 131 

contemporary history for the same purpose; all 
these, and more than these, are necessary for the 
female biographer, who leaves contemporary events, 
and dives into the character and incidents of past 
times. This sketch of the requisites is rapid, 
but it is not exaggerated. An Englishwoman may 
be permitted for one moment to express her exul- 
tation at the well-earned tribute of praise bestowed 
on the biographer of the Queens of England, Miss 
Agnes Strickland. The graceful eulogium of M. 
Guizot, is one that could not fail most highly 
to gratify the accomplished authoress, and a re- 
flective honour comes to her age, her sex, and her 
country. 

Fictitious narrative is the field in which women 
have most delighted to employ themselves, and 
their powers of delicate observation, joined to 
their instinctive penetration into the movements 
of the human heart, give them, for some species 
of novels, peculiar advantages. This was Sir Wal- 
ter Scott's opinion, and no one, it is presumed, 
will question the accuracy of judgment of the Prince 
of Novelists. In Miss Austen's novels he particu- 
larly delighted, and so did Coleridge. When a 
transition is to be made from private, domestic 
K 2 



132 NARRATIVE. 

life, to its bolder scenes and more public walks, 
women will be found necessarily at fault ; for wbat 
is written from hear-say, even admitting it to be 
accurate, cannot of course have the force and vivid- 
ness of personal impressions. Our belief is, 
that when a man writes a novel, the hero of the 
novel should be the principal character, the nu- 
cleus of the story ; but when a woman is the au- 
thor, it will be safer to rivet the attention on the 
adventures of the heroine. We are not sufficiently 
well read in this class of literature, to know if this 
rule prevails, but the reason for its adoption are so 
obvious, that it is highly probable that it does. 

The question sometimes arises, is it that the an- 
cients were unacquainted with the art of novel 
writing and novel-reading ? or is it that their novels 
have perished ? The probability is, that the fic- 
tions of their poets, and the changes rung upon 
their fanciful mythology, occupied that portion of 
thought, which with us is devoted to novels. Cer- 
tainly in our literature, there is no lack of this 
commodity. They are to be euumerated, not by 
scores, not by hundreds, but by thousands.* There 

* In a small street, in the neighbourhood of the Regent's 
Park, is an announcement on a bookseller's shop, that ' Te 






NARRATIVE. 133 

are new ones every month, and we might feel sur- 
prised at this constant reproduction, did we not know 
that many are old friends with new names, having 
undergone merely a little change and revision to 
be accommodated to the changes of times and man- 
ners. The supply does not appear to exceed the 
demand, and it is a well-known fact in ' the trade,' 
that when a novel really succeeds, nothing pays so 
well. The novel-writers of the day are chiefly 
women, and a very large proportion of the women 
who write for the public, are thus engaged. 

Now though we do plead guilty to rather a strong 
feeling, (prejudice some would call it,) against novels 
and romances, we do not mean to deny that a 
really well-written novel may occasionally be useful, 
as a species of relaxation to the mind after severe 
and long-continued labour. It is sometimes neces- 
sary to have our attention directed without labour to 
something quite out of ourselves, and if, in such 
circumstances, we can read a novel, as we look at 
a panorama, without suffering it afterwards to inter- 
fere with the direction of our thoughts, the influence 

thousand novels and romances are lent to read.' It is an 
ominous announcement, for such a collection is enough to poison 
the minds of a whole city. 



134 NARRATIVE. 

may be not injurious. It may even be in a 
degree useful; it may be merely like having 
looked on a vivid picture of life and manners. Of 
this kind are the sketches of the Irish peasantry in 
some of the novels of Miss Edge worth, without any 
dispute, one of the most accomplished female writers 
of the day. The danger is however on the oppo- 
site side ; the tide of the day sets in far too de- 
cidedly in favour of novels and novel-reading, and 
some from whom better things might have expected, 
are carried away by the torrent. 

It has been already said that many of the female 
writers of the day, are to be found among the novel- 
ists. This is exceedingly to be regretted. If the evils 
to women from novel-reading are not small, those 
which arise from novel-writing, are alarming great. 
A very slight survey will convince of the truth of 
this assertion. 

We have already pointed out that one stronghold 
of woman, in fictitious narrative, is her knowledge 
of the human heart. Her sphere of observation 
is limited, and it is from herself that she learns to 
know others. Now in this laying bare of the 
workings of the inward heart, there is a peculiar 
inconvenience for delicate and sensitive woman. 



NARRATIVE. 135 

It is like proclaiming to the public that which 
passes within her own breast. It is more — it is 
placing a glass window in her bosom, that every 
passer-by may look in and see the workings of her 
heart. It is needless to point out the obvious in- 
conveniences ; every woman of ordinary delicacy of 
feelings instinctively perceives them, and, like the 
mimosa plant, shrinks away from the danger. 

Another danger for female novel-writers is, that 
their attention is too exclusively directed to the 
tender passions* and this exclusive attention has a 
tendency to increase the force of those feelings, 
which in the gentler sex, are generally sufficiently 
strong. By close attention to any subject, the im- 
portance of that subject is magnified. A promi- 
nence greater than its relative value authorizes, is 
thus given to one part of the character, and inde- 
dently of destroying the moral balance of power, 
the feelings to which we allude, are precisely those 
which are most to be guarded against. They are 
the weak part of woman ; the breach in the wall 
by which the enemy often enters into the city. 

We can imagine that the two evils of novel- 
writing which have just been pointed out, may, in 
some kinds of novel-writing, be avoided. The field 



136 NARRATIVE. 

of fiction is a very wide one, and the paths to be 
trodden, are very varied. But a third evil appears 
to be inseparable from fictitious narrative when 
pursued by woman. The habit of working every 
thing up for effect, will be carried into ordinary 
life. Nothing will be seen precisely in its right 
dimensions and true colouring ; at least nothing will 
be so represented to others. There will neces- 
sarily and inevitably be a want of accuracy, as 
it regards the common details of every-day exis- 
tence. The sagacious surmise of the Athenian 
legislator, when he first witnessed the representa- 
tions of Thespis, and asked him if he was not 
ashamed to tell so many lies before so many peo- 
ple, is verified in the characters to which we allude. 
The habit is formed of telling fictions for amuse- 
ment ; and that habit is continued even when there 
is an imperative demand for simple, plain, and una- 
dorned truth. 

These remarks are made with an eye to those 
novels which amuse and employ what is styled 
1 the world.' We are almost afraid of meddling 
with religious novels ; those nondescript produc- 
tions that carry an anomaly in their very name. 
Their introduction is probably due to Mrs. More. 



NARRATIVE. 137 

Who has not read Coelebs ? Who does not 
know that stiff, cold, lifeless heroine yclept Lucilla 
Stanley, the perfection, we may suppose, of a 
young lady in the imagination of an elderly 
maiden one. The character is very well parodied 
in the Lucille of ' Corinne ;' correctness of senti- 
ment, propriety of deportment, with about as much 
life and energy as a marble statue. Was it acci- 
dent or design that led Madame de Stael to the 
same name? We confess that as the first of a 
class of literature to which we feel a peculiar re- 
pugnance, we have a dislike to the name of Coelebs, 
but we do not think that our feelings, in this case, 
influence our judgment. 

There are strong objections against religious 
novels at the very outset ; it is the professed union 
of the most important truths with light fiction, the 
dreamy fancies of a human brain. It is the join- 
ing together of the eternal words of God, with the 
lightest workings of the imagination of man. 
In some cases indeed, fiction may be a vehicle for 
the conveyance of truth to quarters, which, without 
such vehicle it might not reach, but does truth 
suffer no loss of dignity in availing herself of such 
a conveyance ? A queen, our Queen Victoria might 



138 NARRATIVE. 

ride in a waggon, and be to all intents and purposes a 
queen still — ' aye, every inch a queen ;' but it is 
necessary and proper for various good reasons, that 
she should not voluntarily lay aside the ordinary 
appurtenances of her Royal rank. A hack- 
neyed quotation from Tasso,* is often urged on 
this subject, but every body knows, that there 
is a way of taking the sweets and leaving the 
bitters. Besides, to say the honest truth, the fault 
in these days is not so much ignorance of what is 
right, as the not feeling and acting up to the know- 
ledge that we possess. The treating of grave theo- 
logical truths in conjunction with light fictioD, has 
a decided tendency to strengthen this evil. 

Mrs. Barbauld once objected to that wild and 
beautiful poem, ■ The Ancient Mariner/ that there 
was a want of moral to it. The poet answered, 
and his reply was just, that there was too much 



* Cosi all' egro fanciul porgiara aspersi 
Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso ; 
Succhi amari ingannato intanto beve, 
E dalT ingaimo suo, vita riceve. 
Thus to the sick child, we offer the edges of the vase 
sprinkled with sweet liquor ; being deceived, he drinks in the 
mean while bitter juices, and from his mistake, receives life. 
Gerusalemme Liberata. — Canto i. 3. 



NARRATIVE. 139 

moral in it for a work of pure imagination. Rea- 
soning from the less to the greater, how powerful 
an argument may be drawn from this remark 
against religious novels ! 

There is another consideration. Is there not, 
in this species of literature, a peculiar tendency 
to that which we before touched upon, a regard to 
effect ? Vanity is woman's besetting sin ; it rules 
in the unrenewed heart, and it struggles for undue 
ascendancy in the renewed one. It is most dan- 
gerous when it entwines itself with the very prin- 
ciples of Christian action; and manifests itself in 
the works which ought to spring from the pure love 
of Christ constraining us. Who can deny that 
scenes are drawn in novels, and characters are 
described, so as to appear lovely to the eye of man ? 
And may not this tend to foster the natural desire 
of the female heart to appear, even as it regards 
her religion, amiable and interesting in the eyes of 
her fellow-creatures ? Every Christian woman 
who knows any thing of her own heart, knows that 
this is a source of constant sin and sorrow, a foun- 
tain casting up continually mire and mud, tainting 
every thing in its neighbourhood. 

We have hazarded these few remarks on a class 



140 NARRATIVE. 

of literature which has been much cultivated by 
women, and much encouraged by them. To some 
persons, they may appear too strong. It is true 
that some good may occasionally have been pro- 
duced by works in this class of literature ; but 
though the calculation is difficult to be made, it 
is not certain that the good has, by any means, been 
a fair counterbalance to the evil. Neither can any 
human being say, that if this very questionable 
auxiliary had never been employed, the very same 
amount of good, and a larger one too, might not have 
been effected by the faithful use of other means. 
We may appear sceptical and even cavilling, but 
we are more disposed to examine the nature of the 
impressions produced by works of this class, than 
to rejoice in their having been made. The exquisite 
susceptibility of the nature of woman, connected 
as it is with her delicate organization, renders her 
peculiarly liable to impressions. She does not 
analyze very accurately, and it is not to be won- 
dered at, if the mere excitement of animal feeling 
may sometimes pass for the workings of grace on 
the heart. 

These remarks are general, and in treating of a 
class of literature, in which several of the female 



NARRATIVE. 141 

religious writers of the day have been engaged, 
we have avoided naming any living name, nor 
has there been, in any thing that has been here 
said, the slightest intention of making any personal 
allusion. 



IX. 



WRITERS OX EDUCATION. 

Education is a science which, in its extent and 
difficulties, might employ the highest powers of the 
mind of man. How can it be otherwise ? It is 
no less than the consideration, how an immortal 
and responsible being may best be trained, body, 
soul, and spirit, to glorify God with all his faculties, 
and to enjoy him for ever. To strengthen the 
powers of mind and body ; to call forth and invi- 
gorate all the faculties, while we rest every thing 
on an unchanging basis, directing every thing to 
the glory of God,— this is indeed a labour, this is 
indeed a difficulty. Often does the thought rush 
from the heart, ' Who is sufficient for these things ?' 
and often is its timid anxiety quieted by the recol- 






WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 143 

lection that we may do all things through Christ 
strengthening us. 

The real study of education as a science, requires 
a deep knowledge of human nature, and a theore- 
tical as well as practical knowledge of metaphy- 
sics. Our age has been marked by a rejection of 
every thing, excepting what short-sighted man 
deemed practically useful ; and the effect has been 
felt in a certain narrowing of the sphere of vision, and 
in a want of expansiveness to the human thought. 
Lay aside every thing but what you deem prac- 
tically useful, and you may confine the towering 
human mind within very narrow limits indeed ; 
but keep watch and ward over it, for it is not in its 
native element, and it will be very apt, like the 
genius of the Arabian Nights imprisoned in a small 
vase, to burst its bounds, and to set you at defiance. 
The want of enlarged and comprehensive views is 
peculiarly felt in education. The public mind, as 
far as we have the opportunity of judging of it, is 
an utilitarian mind ; it is neither metaphysical nor 
imaginative, and the inward response of a great 
number who read this remark, will be, ' So much the 
better. Metaphysics withdraw from the palpable 
concerns of life ; imagination is a fairy, playing 



144 WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

amid flowers, a Syren that sings to bewilder. What 
is the use of all that for a quiet and respectable walk 
through life ?' 

The use of it, we boldly answer, is to raise us 
above such low views and narrow conceptions, in 
which there is a good deal of lurking indolence, 
and a very great deal of selfishness. The use of 
it ? — why our very thoughts, feelings, and energies, 
are shackled and cramped — shackled by prejudices, 
cramped by want of sufficient space in which to 
take exercise. Man, in his practical utility, may 
deem himself very wise, but he may rest assured, 
that he cannot systematically condemn to inertness 
any power with which God has endowed the human 
mind, or close any avenue to knowledge, which the 
bountiful Creator has opened, without serious injury 
to all the faculties aud all the powers. We know 
perfectly that there is such a thing as the abuse of 
metaphysical science, but we contend that its neg- 
lect introduces a poverty into the literature of a 
country, which is felt throughout the whole of its 
crippled joints. The circulating fluid is impo- 
verished, and there is no strength in the system. 
It is felt every where, but in no department more 
than in education. There is a want of principles 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 145 

to which to refer, as it regards intellectual develop- 
ment, and this is a radical defect. 

It is at once evident that it falls more to the pro- 
vince of the mind of man to remedy the deficiency 
here complained of, — to rectify the views of the 
public mind on education, and to magnify its 
office ; to form enlarged and comprehensive plans, 
and to fix them upon a sound and solid basis. The 
department of woman is humbler, but not less use- 
ful. Peculiarly fitted by a wise and gracious Crea- 
tor for the charge of infancy, she is fitted also for 
the task of watching over moral and mental deve- 
lopment, in the first stages of existence. She may 
not be able to survey with a steady eye, the wide 
sphere of labour, which may be required for matur- 
ing the powers of her infant charge, as those powers 
gradually develope ; but the early practical de- 
tails, the minutiee of infant life which amount to 
so important an aggregate, are what she is fully 
equal to, and they demand her careful attention. 
There is a strict analogy between the body and 
the mind, and she who holds the little hand, and 
directs the tottering feet of a smiling, prattling in- 
fant, is often performing precisely the same office 
to its developing mind. 

L 



146 "WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

Female minds of the highest order, have been 
employed on the labours of education. We will 
not repeat what has been already said in the gene- 
ral complaint, that it has been considered too much 
as an art, and too little as a science ; for we rejoice 
in the degree of attention that has been given to 
it by ladies, and would look on the brighter side. 
One of the most distinguished female writers on 
education is Miss Edgeworth. We are not now 
referring to her works for children, but to the 
volume which she published in conjunction with 
her father, entitled, ' Practical Education.' Of 
course, an educational work which sets forth, in its 
prefatory remarks, that it meddles with neither reli- 
gion nor politics, must be radically defective ; and 
in e Practical Education,' many of the observations 
on moral training should be read with great cau- 
tion ; still, the work is so very useful with respect 
to intellectual development and plans of teaching, 
that perhaps it is not too much to say, that there is 
to be found in it the germ of many of our modern 
improvements. 

Another writer who has deserved well of her 
age, is Madame Necker de Saussure, a cousin of 
Madame de Stael, and the original of Madame de 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 147 

Cerlebes in ' Delphine.' The work of this lady 
on ' Progressive Education,' has been pronounced 
by one of the first journals of France, to be one 
of the best works on education that Europe has 
of late years produced. The first volume of the 
work contains a remarkably minute and interesting- 
detail of infancy, evidently the result of very close 
and exact observation. In the second volume, 
childhood and youth are reviewed, and the remarks 
which are conveyed in an excellent style, are sensi- 
ble, and frequently new and striking. In the third 
volume, the writer follows the female character, 
through the duties of mature life, to the retirement 
of old age. We do not, of course, agree with Ma- 
dame Necker de Saussure in every thing that she 
advances, but we respect her as a pious and sensible 
woman, of close observation and deep reflection, 
who has written a work, calculated to be very useful 
to every reflective mind, engaged in the arduous 
labours of which it treats. 

One reason for strongly recommending " L'Edu- 
cation Progressive," is that its author enters far 
more into principles than is at all usual. Her in- 
timacy with Madame de Stael, (for, after the death 
of Monsieur Necker, they were like sisters,) might 
12 



148 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 



direct her mind to metaphysical science, and her 
evident familiarity with the German writers, would 
have a still more powerful influence in this respect. 
Let no one marvel at so much stress being laid on 
the importance of these studies, for those who write 
on education. The want of them is as practically 
felt in a treatise on education* as the want of ma- 
thematical knowledge is felt in a treatise on Per- 
spective, or, to descend lower still, in one on the use 
of the globes. 

The difficulty of popularizing instruction is very 
great, but it is a task which is suited to women. 
It does not require so high a degree of power to 
understand and appreciate discoveries when made, 
as to make those discoveries for ourselves. To 
seize on truth, when the keen eye of the philoso- 
pher, after a long train of experiments and calcula- 
tions, has at last found it, and to place that truth in 
a palpable and popular form, is a work therefore in 
which woman may be useful. It is a remarkable 
fact, and one corroborative of what has been just 
said, that a woman, Madame du Chatelet, intro- 
duced the discoveries of Newton into France ; and 
a woman, Mrs. Somerville, our illustrious country- 
woman, has, as is well known, introduced the dis- 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 149 

coveries of Laplace into England. Newton and 
Laplace were known respectively to the learned 
men of the two countries, but their researches had 
not been brought in a palpable form before the 
public mind, so as to amalgamate with the thoughts 
of a numerous body, that portion of the liberally- 
educated part of the community, who have not made 
an exclusive study of astronomy. 

To popularize knowledge well, can never be 
an easy task, and the work becomes more arduous, 
in proportion as minds are less prepared, and less 
able to receive it. Hence the grand difficulty 
of writing for children. The difficulty is not so 
much to find simple language, (for unusual words 
are often easily explained, and not unfrequently 
they explain themselves,) as to select thoughts and 
ideas, which are within a child's sphere of per- 
ception and observation. It is perhaps only those 
who have made the trial, who can estimate the 
labour and reflection required for accomplishing the 
task. A modern English divine has said that of 
all which Dr. Watts has written, nothing astonished 
him so much as the ' Hymns for Children ;' and 
truly, ' The little busy bee,' so well known to chil- 
dren, and so much loved by them, is a wonderful 



150 WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

production. It is observable that none but women 
of the highest talent, have really succeeded in 
writing for children. Mrs. Barbauld is an exam- 
ple in point; her early reading lessons are well 
known, and have been generally used. The same 
may be said of her ' Hymns in Prose for Children,' 
against which however, (beautiful as they are in a 
literary point of view,) we must enter our protest, 
as being strongly imbued with the Socinian princi- 
ples of the writer. Miss Edgeworth is another 
example. She, whose talents have been acknow- 
ledged and admired by some of the first literary 
authorities of our times, has devoted considerable 
labour to this humble but difficult walk. And Miss 
Edgeworth understands children well. Every little 
girl seems to form an instinctive acquaintance with 
' Rosamond,' and every little boy has the same 
facility of intercourse with ' Frank ;' not Frank and 
Rosamond as they grow up, but Frank and Rosa- 
mond when they are little. There is scarcely the 
same individuality about Harry and Lucy ; these 
two little worthies seem so very scientific, that 
we take up their histories, more with the hope of 
learning from their wisdom, than with any inten- 
tion of sympathizing in their concerns. Miss 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 151 

Edgeworth's Socinian principles are much and 
deeply to be regretted. In many parts of her 
writings, there is a want, a chasm, a blank ; we feel 
forcibly that the true basis of morality is not there, 
that actions are not viewed in the light of Christian 
truth, nor weighed in the balances of the sanctuary. 
To some of the tales in the ' Parent's Assistant,' 
especially the ' False Key,' objections of another 
kind may be made. It is most unwise to bring 
before children strong descriptions of vice and wick- 
edness ; it familiarizes their minds with that, of 
which, until their judgment be developed, and the 
moral principle strengthened, it is highly desirable 
that they should remain ignorant. But all children 
who have read the « Parent's Assistant,' will proba- 
bly agree in the opinion, that ' Simple Susan ' is 
one of the most beautiful tales for childhood, that 
Miss Edgeworth ever wrote. Sir Walter Scott, who 
was an enthusiastic admirer of Miss Edgeworth's 
talents, and who, on the publication of ' Waverley,' 
sent her a copy of it, with a most complimentary 
letter through James Ballantyne, — Sir Walter, who 
considered the day that Miss Edgeworth came to 
visit him at Abbotsford , as one of the proudest of 
his life, expressed, even after his mind was shat- 



152 WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

tered, his admiration of ' Simple Susan.' 'When 
the little girl parts with her lamb/ he said, ' there 
is nothing for it, but to lay down the book, and 
weep outright.' 

Mrs. Marcet may be adduced, as another exam- 
ple of a female mind of the first power, exercised on 
early instruction. After popularizing, in familiar 
conversations, various branches of scientific know- 
ledge, natural philosophy, chemistry, vegetable 
physiology, and political economy, (her treatise on 
the last science, it is whispered, has been studied by 
members of the legislature,) her attention of late 
years has been given to the production of children's 
books ; and the beautiful little series entitled ' Wil- 
ly's Stories,' and her delightful ( Conversations on 
Land and Water,' (though the latter is for children 
of a more advanced age,) are satisfactory proofs of 
her success in this department. 

We have no hesitation in avowing, that we would 
much rather place in the hands of a child the works 
of Mrs. Marcet, and some of those of Miss Edge- 
worth, than permit them to read the Tales of Mrs. 
Sherwood. One exception may be in favour of 
1 Little Henry and his Bearer;' but Mrs. Sherwood's 
other writings, we should be inclined to place either 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 153 

in a prohibitory, or an expurgatory index. The 
danger of mingling solemn truth with what every 
child knows to be fiction, need not be here repeated 
and insisted upon ; for this is, by no means, the 
only objection to Mrs. Sherwood's writings. The 
Stories on the Church Catechism are liable to the 
same censure that was passed on Miss Edgeworth's 
1 False Key;' they tend to familiarize the mind of 
a carefully-educated child, with the vices of a class 
of society, to which it is a stranger. A further and 
a yet graver exception may be taken against Mrs. 
Sherwood's writings, as tending powerfully to de- 
stroy moral equilibrium by exciting strong sympa- 
thies, the calling forth of which, when they do not 
lead to action, is always injurious.* We have yet 
another charge ; they may foster female vanity, so 
much being said in them of grace, beauty, and even 
of dress. Who that has read any thing of Mrs. 
Sherwood's stories, does not at once recal her ' ex- 

* A sensible woman lately remarked, ' I have not read 
Mrs. Trollope's Factory Boy, and I do not intend it, because 
1 do not like to nave my feelings harrowed with tales of dis- 
tress, which it is not in my power to alleviate.' We wish 
that all the ladies of England would abandon strongly exciting 
novels on the same principle. We should have less sentimen- 
talism, but perhaps more real exertion in favour of distress. 



154 WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

ceedingly lovely ' children with their blue eyes, and 
curling flaxen hair ? and what little female heart is 
unaffected by the description ? In Mrs. Sher- 
wood's later works, the ■ History of Henry Milner,' 
for instance, it is understood that there are in the 
latter volumes, doctrines and sentiments not gene- 
rally received by the Church of Christ — in fact 
not orthodox : and this impression has occasioned, 
in the minds of many anxious parents, a degree of 
distrust generally, with regard to the works of this 
once highly popular writer. Mrs. Sherwood's fault 
has been giving undue liberty to the imagination, 
and substituting feeling for principle ; an error 
always dangerous to a female, and especially so to 
a female author. 

In going through this work, the wish has been 
to refrain as much as possible from speaking of 
living writers, except in cases where it was diffi- 
cult to avoid bringing forward their names, without 
incurring the charge of affectation. In considering 
the labours of women in education, it is impossible 
to pass unnoticed the Authoress of * Lessons on 
Objects,' a lady, whose powers and energies have, 
for several years, under the pressure of very delicate 
health, been devoted to the improvement and ex- 



WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 155 

tension of the infant-school system on Christian 
principles. Her writings are characterized by a 
distinct knowledge of early life, with its require- 
ments and capabilities; by clearness of thought and 
precision of expression ; by correctness of judg- 
ment and accuracy of language ; and, throughout 
the whole, a certain refinement of taste and deli- 
cacy of feeling are felt rather than perceived. 

Though much has been accomplished in the 
jDractical details of education, much remains to 
be done. When the true principles of education 
are more fully developed, we may hope as a 
natural consequence, for an improvement in the 
practical details. Some amelioration as it regards 
school-books is much to be desired. History re- 
quires to be re-written ; to be more graphic, more 
interesting, more weeded from those moral observa- 
tions and inferences which serve no other purpose 
than to lull the mind of the little reader asleep, and 
to convince him that there is no occasion for him 
to make reflections, when so many are made for 
him. In geography too, striking and correct de- 
scriptions of countries, manners, and people are 
wanted, with some of the traditionary legends of 
nations intermingled; those legends, which inte- 



156 WRITERS ON EDUCATION. 

rest the youthful mind, and which may afford fund 
for reflection in riper years, by the consideration as 
to the effect they have had, on the characters and 
modes of thinking, of the people described. There is 
likewise, notwithstanding the quantities that yearly 
teem from the press, a deficiency in really good 
books for children, — books with which they may 
be safely and profitably amused. It is of no use 
to give them books which they cannot understand, 
or books which they will not read. We have plenty 
of these, and plenty of cold compendium, and dead 
epitome ; we want more, we want productions with 
life and feeling in them, and we are much mistaken 
if, in the next twenty years, somethiug will not be 
done by English females, to vivify English nursery 
literature. 



X. 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 



There are various motives for taking up the pen 
for the service of the public. Some, as has been 
already said, write for money, and some for literary 
celebrity, and some again, for what Madame de Stael, 
who spoke from her own experience, so beautifully 
calls, ' to satisfy the internal inspiration. ' The last 
class of writers are the only ones who will ever 
attain eminence ; and it is indeed a blessing to 
writers and readers, when, conjoined with the in- 
ward, active, vivifying movement of a talent re- 
ceived from heaven, there is an earnest desire to 
serve the gracious Giver, to spread his truth, and 
to speak his praise. 

Individuals thus gifted, have thus laboured in 



158 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

our own land, and we thank God for it. In our 
church service, ' we bless and praise his holy name 
for all his servants departed this life in his faith 
and fear ;' and in the same spirit, we should adore 
his goodness for those among his true servants, who 
''being dead yet speak " by their works and writings ; 
and for those also, who are yet living" to praise him, 
and to make known his truth." It is a cause for 
great thankfulness that in the literary world, in 
which so many, who are endowed with excellent 
gifts, are shining as meteor-lights to lead astray., 
God does not leave himself without witness, but in 
rich purposes of love, raises up from time to time, 
men, — aye, and women too, — to bear testimony to 
the truth as it is in Jesus, and to proclaim to a 
world lying in darkness and the shadow of death, 
the light of divine truth. The world which cannot 
be at peace with God, which hates the Lord Jesus, 
and hates his people because they belong to Him, 
raises the cry of fanaticism ! bigotry ! enthusiasm ! 
against those, who desire to lay the gifts which they 
have received, on the altar of the sanctuary ; and in 
conformity with this hatred, it does its best to ex- 
clude them from its favoured circle, to withhold the 
meed of praise, and the honorary laurel crown. Be 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 159 

it so,- — the servants of Christ are not disheartened ; 
they behold the earnest toils of those gifted beings, 
who look merely for earthly fame, and their words 
might be, ' They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, 
but we, an incorruptible.' And, as far as the bright 
diadem, on which the inspired apostle fixed his eye 
while he wrote these words, excels the poor fading 
wreaths which adorned the brows of the Grecian 
victors, so far do the high hopes of the really Chris- 
tian writer, excel the poor expectations of those, 
whose heart and hopes are chained to this perishing 
earth. Nor is this all : when talent is really fixed 
on the basis of divine and immutable truth, there is 
a certainty in its operations, an expansiveness in 
its views, which increase, even in a literary point 
of view, its value and its effectiveness. ' The light ' 
which is in the body is not * darkness ;' grace has 
beamed on the heart, and even the intellectual 
powers feel the benefit of its kindling influence. 
while we pause, for one moment, on the glowing 
thoughts that rise before the mind, of the future 
glory of the church, " when the Lord shall arise 
upon her, and his glory shall be seen upon her," 
(Isaiah lx. 2) how earnestly does the desire ascend 
frpm the heart, that even in this preparatory, proba- 



160 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

tionary state, the most excellent and influential 
gifts of God, — gifts more valuable than gold or in- 
cense — should be laid at the Saviour's feet, and 
employed in his service. And if there is a general 
desire (irrespective of instruments, and looking above 
the world,) that the kingdom of Christ may increase 
till it fill the whole earth, and the Lord shall reign 
before his ancients gloriously, — if there is joined 
with this, a conviction that, whether puny man 
works or hinders, the course of prophecy will be 
accomplished, enlargement and deliverance will 
from some quarter arise, and the word of the Lord 
will run and be glorified ; yet a woman may be 
pardoned for the superadded and not opposing wish, 
that the more highly-gifted of her own sex, may be 
found fellow-helpers in this great work, coadjutors 
with prophets and apostles, — and we speak it with 
reverence, — with the Lord Jehovah Himself. 

In considering the literary character, peculiar gifts 
are necessarily pre-supposed ; but we know well 
and feel deeply, that the poor cottager, who lies on a 
bed of pain, who knows little excepting that she is 
a great sinner, and Jesus Christ is her dear Saviour, 
may far transcend in real Christian graces, — yes, 
and in Christian usefulness too, — the intellectual 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 161 

and gifted female who is devoting all her energies to 
the service of Christ, and whose name and labours 
are extensively known and respected. In the one, 
there may be a purity of motive, a simplicity of 
purpose, which may be unknown to the other ; for 
it is most difficult, in a public career, entirely to 
hush the whispers of self-applause and of self- 
gratulation. u God seeth not as man seeth," and 
it will not be until the last solemn day of account, 
that any finite being will understand the awful and 
momentous meaning of those words : u Many that 
are last shall be first, and the first shall be last." 
It would be well if we could all remember, that 
whatever be our talents as it regards kind or degree, 
we are but stewards, and the word is addressed to 
each, " Occupy till I come." We are to recollect 
who made us to differ; that the gifts which we 
have are not our own, but entrusted ; and that awful 
indeed will be the account which we shall have to 
give of our stewardship, if we grow proud of the 
wealth which was merely committed for a time to 
our charge, and expend it on our own pleasure, in- 
stead of employing it in our Master's service. 

But can a gifted woman employ her talents 
directly in the great cause of truth, in the diffusion 

M 



162 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

of Scriptural knowledge ? We have no hesitation 
in replying in the affirmative. We freely confess 
that there are departments of religious labour in 
which it is not meet and proper for a woman to 
enter, and more extensively than to mere oral in- 
struction perhaps, may the words of the apostle be 
applied : " I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to 
usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." 
Any thing of an authoritative or a dictatorial man- 
ner is peculiarly repulsive in woman at any time ; 
and it is especially to be avoided in advocating the 
cause, and labouring to spread the principles of that 
Gospel, which inculcates upon her the duties of 
modesty, meekness, and humility. It may be re- 
marked, as it regards the province of labour, that 
biblical criticism is not a field of labour suited to 
women; more accuracy and extent of knowledge 
are required for treating it successfully, than they 
in general possess, and it is much safer for them 
in this, as in other things, to avail themselves of 
the discoveries of others, than to leave the well- 
trodden paths, and to attempt to make discoveries 
for themselves. And there are other reasons ; any 
subject that has a strong tendency to lead to con- 
troversy had better be avoided. And to proceed 






WRITERS ON RELIGION. 163 

with another example, religions controversy is pecu- 
liarly dangerous for woman. It is unsafe to trust 
her with the weapons : her judgment is not suffi- 
ciently cool, and her feelings are too warm to allow 
her to parry, with skill and safety, the attacks of 
her adversary ; and, in all probability, she will in- 
flict upon herself more blows than she gives to the 
opposite party. And supposing it otherwise ; 
supposing, for the sake of argument, that the lady 
is of right true Amazonian spirit, and that she 
fights with masculine vigour and courage, does it 
not derogate from female honour, and female dig- 
nity, to engage in any species of combat, even in 
an intellectual one ? Poets have sometimes de- 
lighted to depict the achievements of female war- 
riors, and a graceful colouring has been thrown over 
the names of Camilla, Clorinda,and Bradamante ; 
but the illusion is dispelled, when two female comba- 
tants enter the field, and all the art of Ariosto can- 
not give a chivalrous grace to the duel between his 
two heroines, Bradamante and Marfisa. Perhaps 
we should not be very wrong in believing, that his 
design was to laugh at the illusion which, by his 
poetic power, he had previously cast around them. 
We have struck off two fields of labour — we 
m 2 



164 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

would next remark that woman has seldom, if ever, 
power to discuss, with grave divines, the deep mys- 
teries of theology. Nor is the ground a safe one 
for her feet ; it is rough and stony, even for the 
practised steps of those, who have been regularly 
trained and disciplined ; and, when the path is diffi- 
cult and obscure, imagination is very apt to spread 
her light wings, and soar far away. Imagination 
is, we are ready to grant, in many departments, a 
most useful auxiliary even to a writer on religion, 
but in the fields of labour of which we speak, she 
must be watched with a jealous eye, and guarded 
with a secure chain. The heavy labours here re- 
ferred to, appear to us, independently of this con- 
sideration, quite as unsuited to women, as the heavy 
labours of agriculture and navigation are. The 
lighter walks of life are theirs, and it is a cause 
of thankfulness to female labourers, that, while in 
religion, • there are depths in which an elephant 
may swim, there are also shallows which a lamb 
may ford.'* 

Still, even in the depths of divine philosophy, 
it is worthy of remark, that women may be instru- 

* Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel xl. 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 165 

mental in placing an obscure, or a controverted truth, 
in a clear or striking point of view. When was 
the intimate and necessary connexion between true 
faith and holy love, ever expressed in a more striking 
form, than in one of the remarks of the Lady Jane 
Grey, in her conferences with Feckenham : ' How 
can I trust in one whom I do not love, and how 
can I love one in whom I do not trust ? ' A simi- 
lar example may be drawn from the examination of 
another lady, whose name is dear to every Chris- 
tian heart, Anne Askew, the blessed martyr in the 
reign of Henry VIII. When examined by her 
cruel judges on the deadly question of transub- 
stantiation, after she had in vain protested that ' she 
was but a poor weak woman, not bred in the 
schools, not meet to cope with grave and learned 
doctors,' she gave, in her skilful parrying of the dan- 
gerous interrogations, and in her quiet exclamation, 
' Alack ! poor mouse ! ' (in reply to the fulmina- 
tions of the learned divine against a mouse, which 
might have eaten the consecrated wafer,) a convincing- 
proof of the quickness of woman's mind, and the 
subtlety of woman's wit, when both are fairly called 
into exercise. The words of Anne Askew, glowing 
and glistening with living truth, have not yet passed 



166 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

away. Many, who have not time to read long folios 
against the favourite Popish doctrine of the real pre- 
sence after the priest has muttered the words of con- 
secration, and who, if they had time to read them, 
would hardly be able to follow the lengthy argu- 
ments, can comprehend, and what is better, feel the 
forcible remark of this tortured and triumphant 
woman : ' That God made man,' she said, * I have 
often heard, but that man could make God, I never 
before heard.' The public confessions ot this ac- 
complished lady, who had been the admiration and 
the idol of a court, for her wit, her beauty and her 
talents, were, as all know, sealed by her dying 
agonies at the burning stake. 

The peculiar province of women, as writers in 
the sacred cause of Christianity, appears to us to 
be, to bring religion to bear on the ordinary circum- 
stances of life, on its social and its relative duties. 
The province is one of considerable extent, and 
there are departments in it, in which females, from 
their instinctive knowledge of the human heart, 
their pliability of thought, their peculiar position 
in social life, their facility of expression, and more 
than all, their mobility of imagination to seize and 
to illustrate, are fitted to labour with safety and 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 167 

success. It has been demonstrated by political 
economists, that one great advantage of the division 
of labour is, that it calls into exercise, in the most 
beneficial manner, different grades of labourers, and 
that the time and labour of the able and experi- 
enced workman, are not employed upon portions of 
the work, which might be equally well discharged 
by a mere child. In the moral and intellectual 
world, the feebler sex has no right to complain if an 
easier and a less onerous portion of the work de- 
volve upon them ; for, if their duties be discharged in 
the love, and faith, and fear of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
their labours are by no means unimportant. " There 
are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; and 
there are differences of administration, but the same 
Lord ; and there are diversities of operations, but 
it is the same God, which worketh all in all." The 
whole of St. Paul's reasoning in the I2th chapter 
of his first epistle to the Corinthians, is strictly 
applicable to this subject; but, let it not be forgotten, 
that he passes from the consideration of gifts to the 
contemplation of love, prefacing his beautiful eulo- 
gium on this master-grace, with an expression which 
strongly indicates his sense of its pre-eminence.* 
* 1 Cor. xii. 31. " And yet shew I unto you a more excellent 



168 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

In some preceding chapters, various channels 
have been pointed out, in which a woman of truly 
devoted spirit, may breathe forth the thoughts and 
feelings of her heart, and advance the cause of her 
Redeemer. Religion is true alchemy ; it turns every 
thing to gold, and it is capable of raising and en- 
nobling the lightest word, as well as the most minute 
action. And it is a source of thankfulness to an 
Englishwoman's heart, that Englishwomen have 
been found, to devote their time and talents to the 
good and great cause of their God and their coun- 
try. We bless God for it, for it was not they that 
laboured, but the grace of God that was with them.* 
Foremost among these truly ■ honourable women,' 
is the venerable Hannah More. It seems to be 
now pretty generally acknowledged that her talents 
have been often over-rated, and that the prominence 
which has been assigned to her, is due as much 
to the peculiarity of her position at the era of a 
great revival of religion, as to the superiority of 



way." The expression is more forcible in the original, as it 
signifies " a way of the greatest excellence ; " or, " a way by 
pre-eminence ; " indeed, it is difficult in our language, to ex- 
press its full emphasis. 

* Cor. xv. 10. 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 169 

her gifts ; but still the obvious fact should not be 
overlooked, that she was raised up by Providence at 
that era, as an instrument of extraordinary and 
extensive usefulness. Her power was exerted in 
the direction to which we have already adverted. 
Possessing herself, by the grace of God, a clear 
and scriptural view of the doctrines and precepts 
of Christianity, she brought the light of those 
doctrines and precepts, to bear upon the habits of 
fashionable life, and in her * Estimate of the re- 
ligion of the fashionable world,' pointed out their 
folly and frivolity. The same line of writing may 
be discovered in her other works ; there is in them, 
more of • Practical Piety,' than of profound the- 
ology. This is not said in the spirit of censure ; 
far be it from us ; we hold that Mrs. More mani- 
fested her sound wisdom in the peculiar sphere of 
religious labour to which she devoted herself; it 
was the strong-hold of her usefulness, and it was 
what was particularly wanted at the period at which 
she wrote. It is generally understood that her 
sister, Mrs. Martha, aided materially in the ' Cheap 
Repository Tracts. ' Their appropriateness and sea- 
sonableness would do honour to any writer. The 
last work which Mrs. More gave to the public, was a 



170 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 



' Treatise on the Spirit of Prayer,' in part compiled 
from her other writings. It is a beautiful work, 
and is remarkable, both from the advanced age of 
the writer, and from the infirmities which were at 
that time her portion. It was a meet prelude to 
her entrance into that everlasting kingdom, where 
the happy spirits " rest not, day and night" in songs 
of thankful praise. The shafts of envious calumny 
were not unfrequently levelled at the venerable 
head of this true-hearted Englishwoman, this 
golden-hearted Christian; they fell long ago 
pointless to the gTound ; she hath entered into 
rest, the rest which is glory,* and her ' works do 
follow her.' 

We do not willingly speak of living writers, 
but we cannot forbear adverting to the force and 
success, with which the author of the ' Listener,* 
has lashed the follies of the religious world, 
and pointed out the inconsistencies to which an 
adherence to worldly maxims will lead religious 
professors. Living in a different stage of religious 
society to that which was subjected to the observa- 
tion of Hannah More, when in the vigour of her 

* Isaiah xi. 10. marginal reading. 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 171 

life, — the author of the ' Listener ' has pursued the 
same sphere of labour ; but her writings have of 
course been adapted to the different circumstances 
in which she is placed, as it regards the progress 
of religious thought, and the advance of religious 
knowledge. And there is another writer whom we 
cannot pass by without a word of affectionate re- 
cognition, the Washington Irving of the religious 
world, as it regards her powers of description, the 
versatility of her mind, and her rare union of 
humour and pathos. It is almost superfluous 
to mention the name of Charlotte Elizabeth, — 
superior to the American in the purity and the 
elegance of her style. We have already expressed 
our opinion that polemical theology is unsuited 
to women, and no one surely would style this 
elegant and graceful writer a polemic ; yet, in one 
respect, our Protestant hearts owe her a pecu- 
liar debt of gratitude. Feeling Protestant truth 
strongly herself, she has expressed it forcibly in 
her writings, and in the words of one of the most 
able and devoted champions of Protestantism,* 
Charlotte Elizabeth has rather been one of the 

* The Rev. Dr. Cooke, of Belfast. 



172 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

leaders of the age in its protestant impulses, than 
one merely borne along by the current of the feel- 
ings of others. 

We venture to give one caution to female re- 
ligious writers. Let them remember the irritability 
of feeling which results from the exquisite delicacy 
of female organization, and let them stand on their 
guard against their susceptibility to impressions. 
It will too often be found, (our remark is a general 
one,) that one set of impressions in the female 
mind is effaced by another, even like the succeed- 
ing waves of the sea. There is but one remedy 
for this evil ; the constant perusal of scripture, with 
earnest prayer for divine teaching. The writer 
last alluded to, has given in her ' Personal Recol- 
lections/ a very instructive example how a mind 
highly susceptible and imaginative, has been kept 
steady amid conflicting opinions, by following this 
simple course. We address this remark peculiarly 
to females, but every religious writer should remem- 
ber, that it is only by the continual aid and direc- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, that his powers can be 
usefully employed. The Psalmist prayed that the 
' words of his mouth, and the meditations of his 
heart,' might be ' acceptable in the sight of his Lord 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 173 

and Redeemer ; ' and surely, if ever there is a sea- 
son when divine aid is peculiarly wanted, it is 
when the pen is taken up, to write what may in- 
fluence the minds of hundreds and of thousands. 
Not only do we require a watch to be set on the 
current of quick -flowing thought, that we offend 
not with our pens, but we need especial grace that 
the truths which we hold, may be brought forth in 
the strongest and clearest light, so as to shine with 
the greatest refulgence on the hearts of a large 
number of individuals. It is well known by all 
public writers, that even a word, a phrase, a turn 
of expression, may not be in accordance with the 
fashion of the day, and may be detrimental to the 
success of a book. In things indifferent, it is quite 
allowable to conform to public taste ; and the ex- 
ample has been adduced merely to illustrate the ne- 
cessity that there is for watchful attention on all 
sides, by those who aspire to wield that high and 
responsible instrument, public influence through 
the medium of the press. 

The grand object of every writer, whatever may 
be his line of labour, should be to set forth the 
Lord Jesus Christ, in his person, his offices, his 
love and his power ; his readiness to hear, his will- 



174 WRITERS ON RELIGION*. 

ingness to save. Perhaps we may be pardoned for 
attempting to illustrate this truth. On the western 
coast of Kent, lie the extensive sands, still bearing 
the name of the bold and ambitious earl Goodwin, 
and said by tradition, to have been formerly the fair 
and broad lands of that unprincipled nobleman. 
At the extremity of these sands is a vessel with a 
beacon-light, tended, (so the information went,) by 
two mariners, chosen in rotation. We have 
passed this light on the wide and stormy ocean, 
and have watched it nickering over the yesty waves ; 
and often, in a calm summer evening, when on 
the high cliffs of the Kentish coast, the same un- 
failing beacon has met the thoughtful eye. Some- 
times it has suggested those thoughts which a British 
heart loves to entertain ; thoughts of England's navy, 
and England's prowess on the stormy sea ; scenes 
in which Rodney fought, and in which Nelson 
bravely commanded and gloriously fell. Sometimes 
there have been feelings of a different kind, in har- 
mony with those so well expressed in our fine old 
song; the dangers of the seas when the stormy winds 
are blowing ; dangers little thought of by those who 
are living at home in quiet, luxurious ease. The 
heart has been touched by the pictures which rapid 



WRITERS ON RELIGION. 175 

fancy has created, and the mind has followed the 
sorrows of shipwrecked mariners, till it beheld them 
sinking into their watery grave. But oftenest of all, 
has that patient watch-light spoken to the soul, 
that such should be the life of a Christian on the 
dark and stormy ocean of life ; that he should 
be found steadily watching, with his loins girt, and 
his lamp burning, " holding forth the word of life ; ' 
thankful, most thankful, if by self-denial and ex- 
ertion, he may preserve any from making ' ship- 
wreck of faith and of a good conscience/ and be 
instrumental in directing any into the haven of ever- 
lasting peace and rest. And that the glorious 
gospel of the blessed God, the " marvellous light," 
so often opposed in Scripture to the kingdom of dark- 
ness ; that blessed beacon, by which the rough and 
dangerous voyage of life can alone be safely perform- 
ed ; could shine forth so vividly, so resplendently in 
the writings of every English Christian, as to arouse 
to a sense of danger, the thousands who are drift- 
ing on their way, in fatal security, in a track which, 
if persisted in, must lead to the shoals of everlast- 
ing destruction. Our sphere may be but limited, 
yet let our aims be high, and our hearts faithful, — 
let the light held forth be the light of heaven, — 



176 WRITERS ON RELIGION. 

and let strength be derived from above, for elevating 
it in the sight of our fellow-sinners, and the bless- 
ing upon our labours may be beyond our highest 
thoughts, and our most aspiring hopes. 






XL 



SOCIAL DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY 
WOMEN, 

In considering the social position of female writers, 
it may be remarked that the prejudices which have 
been already discussed as existing against learned 
women, are extended by courtesy, more or less, to 
all literary women. Literary tastes and pursuits in 
females are assumed to involve an unfitness and 
inaptitude for common duties. A prejudice cannot 
be argued against, for argument only serves, in the 
majority of cases, to increase its strength. One 
simple fact might suffice to prove that inaptitude 
for ordinary duties is by no means a necessary con- 
comitant of literary superiority. Madame de Stael, 
who shewed so beautifully in * Corinne,' that the 

N 



178 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

highest female talents may be brought to bear on 
the duties of domestic life, exemplified the truth in 
her own conduct. Her affectionate devotion to her 
father is well known, but this was not all. She not 
only educated her children without the aid of a 
governess, but managed her fortune, and regulated 
her expenses with singular prudence and exactness, 
ever considering it as little less than an insult to be 
told, that it was beneath a person of her eminence 
to attend to pecuniary matters. 

This prejudice, it is evident, may be overcome, 
by scrupulous and exact attention to the duties of 
ordinary life; and every woman of talent is bound 
to this exact attention, if she would avoid the 
stigma, or if she desire to avert it, not only from her 
name, but from her sex. If there were such a thing 
as works of supererogation in ordinary life, those 
works would be required at the hands of a cele- 
brated literary female. Supposing this prejudice 
overcome, (and the success of the combat depends 
upon the individual herself,) a more dangerous foe 
remains ; a prejudice more difficult to be over- 
thrown. It is — why should we veil the truth ? a 
dislike to talent in general, to female talent in 
particular. Pride, though not made for man, is 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 179 

natural to man ; few like to acknowledge, or even 
to feel, that others are superior to themselves. 
The story of the peasant, who gave his vote to exile 
Aristides, simply because he hated to hear him 
always praised for his justice, conveys a strong 
moral lesson as to the real character of poor human 
nature. The master grace of humility is never 
really learned, excepting at the foot of the cross ; 
and we need not refer to the pages of inspiration to 
prove, that fewer hearts are under the influence of 
divine grace, than under the dominion of the world, 
and the God of the world. This hatred of supe- 
riority in general, blazes with particular fury, 
against anything of intellectual superiority in the 
weaker sex. Argue as you will, it is the fact ; and 
the heat is not the less intense, because the fire is 
sometimes concealed. 

The workings of genius, real genius, are of 
necessity, by the very nature of things, different from 
the workings of an ordinary mind. So self-evi- 
dent is this truth, that, when reduced to words, it 
borders upon a truism. We may take Dr. Johnson's 
definition of genius, that it is a strong mind acci- 
dently directed to some particular object; if we do 
not conceive of that mind as distancing its compe- 

N 2 



180 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

titors, and therefore companionless, excepting with 
spirits of its own rank and order, our ideas of the 
power and force of genius are very inadequate. Or 
we may prefer adopting Madame de Steel's defini- 
tion, that genius is good sense in pursuit of new 
ideas; and true it is, though good sense must 
be the basis, and is so, yet, we cannot but feel 
that in the earnest pursuit of truth, — in the de- 
light of having ideas, unknown to the multitude, 
breaking over the mind, — in the expression of those 
ideas, there must be words, and there may be ac- 
tions, on which the world may look coldly, or even 
cast its withering frown of contempt, simply and 
solely because those words and actions deviate from 
the straight and rigid line of public opinion — the 
high road, trodden by ordinary minds, which, in the 
very nature of things, the eagle wing of genius 
cannot but occasionally spurn. Good, honest, 
hearty admiration for powers differing from our 
own by their superiority, is an ennobling feeling. 
And why should it not every-where exist ? The 
Creator has been very bountiful to the human spe- 
cies, and the power of the loftiest intellect among 
men, does not so far exceed that of the lowliest, as 
the powers of the lowliest mind do the perceptions of 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 181 

the highest of the brute creation. Why should there 
he so earnest a desire to level all minds to one 
standard ? A tyrant of ancient times did, it is said, 
cut or stretch the bodies of men to the length which 
he had arbitrarily assigned ; but mind defies all such 
despotic measurements. Why not joy in the 
aerial movements and lofty flight of genius, even 
if those movements are occasionally beyond our 
comprehension, and if that flight sometimes carry 
her out of the reach of our aching eye ? 

We are not encouraging affectation ; nothing can 
be more disgusting. It is not difficult to imitate the 
occasional eccentricities of genius, but genius itself 
is a gift of heaven. The plain and obvious truth is 
continually overlooked, that though superiority im- 
plies difference, difference does not of itself imply 
superiority. Intentional deviations from the beaten 
path, for the sake of appearing* to possess what we do 
not, are contrary to simplicity and truth of charac- 
ter, and these two excellences are important elements 
in a superior mind. Genius is most adverse to affec- 
tation of all kinds ; she describes forcibly because 
she feels intensely ; she paints clearly, because she 
perceives distinctly. Throw over her, (the supposi- 
tion may for one moment be allowed,) the veil of 



182 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

affectation ; you fetter and impede her wings ; in- 
stead of following her own bright conceptions, she 
is lying grovelling and panting on the ground. 

We speak of intensity of feeling as one of the 
ingredients of genius ; we may add to it, quickness 
of perception, rapidity of thought, distinctness in 
mental vision. Women of really superior talent 
claim, in one respect, sympathy and consideration ; 
the body is rarely sufficiently powerful to sustain 
the workings of the mind, and they seldom enjoy 
good health. A German critic said of the charac- 
ter of Hamlet, that it was like an oak planted in a 
china vase ; and such is genius in woman. The 
fragile vessel is too often shivered by the workings 
of the energies within, and it lies, before its time, a 
melancholy though beautiful heap of ruins. It is 
true, we had almost said too true, but we would not 
repine, that there is an equality in the gifts of God, a 
compensating and balancing principle which it is not 
well to overlook. The wish of a poet of iron Rome 
was to have a strong mind in a strong body, and 
unlike the majority of wishers, he spoke well and 
wisely. But it is a wish which is seldom fulfilled to 
mortal man ; the sharpness of the sword pierces the 
scabbard ; the constant dropping of the water wears 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 183 

the stone. , The physical powers of a gifted woman 
sink alike under the feverish excitement of an ima- 
ginative mind, and the patient thoughtful lahour 
of a reflective one. We know that there is more 
blame than pity, in cases where the body is pro- 
strate, after the exhausting labours of the mind. 
We know how the censure is dealt out for past 
offences, and how the suffering culprit is exhorted 
to be quiet and still for the future, seeing that undue 
mental labour is sure to bring in its train bodily 
sorrow and anguish. The medical fulminations are 
poured over the couch of exhaustion and pain ; the 
calm and cold and apparently inconsiderate advice 
of friends, accompanies them— friends who know 
not — how can they know ? that the poor sufferer 
would most gladly, if she could, have some respite 
from that internal fire which is consuming and wast- 
ing her bodily strength — that she longs and lan- 
guishes for rest from its untiring energies. To 
work incessantly, is an attribute of the mind here 
described ; it must, it will work ; and its frail compa- 
nion the body, hurried along by the fearful rapidity 
of its movements, often sinks powerless in the race. 
There are great resources, we readily admit, for 
the woman of genius. The beauties of nature, the 



184 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

wonders of art, the enjoyments of literature, the 
discoveries of science, the magnificent world of 
mind, (that world which is completely veiled from 
observers of common stamp,) the combinations of 
her own brilliant fancy, the observation of her 
faculties, all these and more than these, offer a vivid 
and varied panorama to her mental eye. Her riches 
are great, and seem inexhaustible as the fabled trea- 
sures in Aladdin's cavern ; but is there no coun- 
terbalance ? yes ! in the midst of all, there 
may be, and there often is, a blank to the heart. 
Those who hate, because they envy her, cannot 
see the loneliness of heart within. She has gone 
beyond, or turned aside from the trodden path, 
not intentionally, as was before said, but under the 
powerful impulses of an energetic mind ; and she 
stands alone, with few who can sympathize with her; 
and sympathy to a female heart, aye, to every 
human heart, is far more precious than kindness. 
Few understand the peculiarities of her mind, and 
fewer still care for understanding them — and she 
feels all this — feels it — yes, — and this too is a part 
of her allotted portion — a hundred times more keenly 
than she ought to do — a hundred times more keenly 
than those who are treading the beaten path, can 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 185 

conceive or imagine. It was a woman of feeling 
and of genius, who said that when the muse places 
a wreath of roses on a female brow, she reserves the 
thorn to fester in the heart. 

Celebrity too has its inconveniences for woman. 
In early life, when the consciousness of superior 
gifts first dawns upon the mind, the thought rests 
upon that crown of fame, which, in the perspec- 
tive, appears so bright and sparkling. The hand 
would fain seize it at once, even as Macbeth at- 
tempted to clutch the aerial dagger; or, (a more 
appropriate similitude,) as the child hies after the 
cup of gold, from which the rain-bow is imagined 
to spring. In the progress through youth, perhaps 
the heart awakes to the consciousness that there are 
brighter and better things than this world can offer ; 
and the pursuit of any earthly good, or to speak 
more correctly, of any earthly thing which men 
imagine to be good, is on principle, repressed. But 
it may be that a circlet, not altogether unlike that 
which danced before the eye of childhood, is under 
providence, placed upon the brow. How do the 
sensations of the reality, correspond with the 
bright anticipations of hope ? Alas ! the brilliancy 
of the circlet is no longer seen, but its pressure is 



186 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

felt. The pinnacle has been climbed, from which, 
fancy whispered so bright and extensive a view 
would be enjoyed, and there the aspirant stands 
in uneasy state, conscious of the broad glare of 
observation, and shrinking from it, longing for 
some interposing cloud to veil her form, or some 
powerful arm on which she might lean while she 
poises herself on the giddy height. Why stand there 
at all ? some will ask ; why not descend ? Alas ! it is 
no longer in her power. The foot, which seems to be 
fixed so firmly, may slide from the point of safety ; 
the form, upon which so many eyes are fixed, may 
be hurled from the height, but it must be in igno- 
miny and contempt ; it is not possible for a woman 
who has once stood before the public, to retire as 
she was into the shades of domestic life. We would 
not unnecessarily darken the picture ; we have said 
enough for our purpose, and that was to induce 
every woman to pause and to consider seriously, 
ere she take the important step of entering on a 
literary career. 

We have pleaded, earnestly pleaded for more 
consideration for women of talent, than is usually 
shewn ; that the excursions of a superior mind 
should not always be ranked as wild aberrations 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 187 

from common sense ; that the flashes of genius 
should not for ever be confounded with the meteor 
illusions of folly. There is a great deal of kind- 
ness in the world ; it would be most ungrateful to 
deny it ; but the same world is also sometimes very 
severe and very unjust, and its severity and injus- 
tice are never more palpably evinced, than with re- 
gard to what we are now considering. Not that its 
censures are always expressed in plain words ; there 
is a certain chivalrous courtesy, due to every lady, 
which may prevent the blunt avowal ; but severe 
censures are often implied, and fully understood by 
the object of them, when they are not expressed. 
We would have regard paid to the peculiar situation 
of a literary woman. She seems, it may be, to those 
who know her not, strong for battle, and well armed 
for combat ; yet be not deceived by the warlike ac- 
coutrements ; within that bosom beats a woman's 
heart, and she should be treated with the deference 
which every gentleman owes to a lady. But let us 
not fear to make the avowal ; a gifted female has 
most to fear from her own sex. We state the 
fact ; we make no inferences ; we venture on no 
explanation. 

Few distinguished females have altogether escaped 



188 DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 

the shafts of calumny, and nothing is perhaps more 
intensely painful to a delicate mind. You may say 
that no attention should be bestowed on the evil re- 
ports, which it may please the idle and ill-informed 
to propagate. Nothing is so easy as to talk and to 
moralize, especially to those who have little where- 
with to employ their thoughts and time, and whose 
hearts are as cold as their heads are empty. You 
might as soon place a prisoner on the rack, and read 
him a fine sermon, to inform him that his wisdom 
will consist in directing his mind to some other sub- 
ject, so as to disregard his tortures. ' There is that 
speaketh like the piercings of the sword.' O 
when that sword has pierced our very heart, and 
the iron has entered into our soul, be silent, as even 
the comforters of Job were at first, rather than 
mock us with such insulting recommendations. 

Enough perhaps has been said; false impresssions 
are easily formed of those who stand before the gaze 
of thousands, and false reports are easily circu- 
lated ; reports sometimes the more dangerous, and 
the more difficult to refute, because they contain a 
portion of truth, or rather ■ A thread of seeming 
with a web of lies.' They pass from one lip to 
another, gathering at every remove, until a snow- 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 189 

ball, formed at first of pure materials, accumulates 
into a frightful avalanche. A witness in our English 
courts of justice, is not allowed to speak from hear- 
say ; he must tell what he has seen with his own 
eyes, and what he has heard with his own ears,— or 
his evidence is stopped. Why, in the name of 
truth and justice, is there not the same safeguard in 
common life ? The words of the poet are on this 
subject true, and if the pronoun were altered to 
the feminine gender, they would have a tenfold 
force. 

' Hard is his fate, on whom the public gaze 
Is fixed for ever to detract or praise ; 
Repose denies her requiem to his name, 
And folly loves the martyrdom of fame.'' 

To many, this picture may seem overcharged. 
Alas ! it might be increased in size, magnified in 
scale, heightened in colouring, and still it would 
give only an inadequate representation of the truth. 
But without dwelling longer on this painful part of 
the subject, are there, even in the ordinary inter- 
course of social life, no inconveniences for a woman 
of literary fame ? Is publicity become so familiar 
to her that she can bear without shrinking, the 
observation to which she is exposed ? Is it so easy 



190 DISADVANTAGES OP LITERARY WOMEN. 

a part to conduct herself with ease and dignity, with 
simplicity, perfect simplicity, when many eyes are 
watching her movements, and many ears are listening 
to her words ? Is there no constraint from the very 
wish not to appear different from others ? is there 
nothing coercive to the mind and manners in the 
very desire so to bridle in thought and feeling, as 
that no sudden flash should betray the resources of 
knowledge, or the rapidity of imagination ? 

You will say that it is merely the whispers of 
vanity for any woman to think that she is the ob- 
ject of curiosity or attention. In many cases it is 
so, and the mistake is ludicrous; but in others, there 
is a painful consciousness of reality, and the indivi- 
dual would fain, very fain resign much, in order to 
be allowed to retire amid the ranks of her fellows 
and her sisters. 

Publicity can, to woman, never be a native ele- 
ment ; she may be forced into it by circumstances, 
but the secret sigh of every truly feminine heart 
will be for the retirement of private life. The lily 
of the valley which shields itself under its huge 
high leaf, the violet which seeks the covert of the 
shady hedge, may both be forced from their retreat, 
and be compelled to stand in the broad open sun- 



DISADVANTAGES OF LITERARY WOMEN. 191 

shine, but will not their withered and blighted 
petals tell that they are pining for the congenial 
shade ? And thus, often, in literary women, there 
is a degree of nervous timidity in private, which 
can scarcely be accounted for by those, who imagine 
that female authors must have so large a stock of 
courage, as to be equal to anything. From this 
cause, authoresses seldom excel in conversation in 
mixed society. Madame de Stael was an excep- 
tion, for she was quite as brilliant in conversation 
as on paper, but this was probably, in a great mea- 
sure, the result of early habit. She was in fact, a 
converser before she was a writer. 

This paper has been confined to social disadvan- 
tages ; the evils, that affect the moral and religious 
character, must be discussed in another chapter. 



XII. 



DANGERS TO THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
CHARACTER. 

The first and most obvious temptation of a literary 
woman is vanity. Not that a literary woman is, 
invariably, more vain than those who have no pre- 
tensions to knowledge and power; but she has 
stronger temptations to it ; and vanity in her, mani- 
fests itself in a more palpable form, and, if she is a 
religious writer, it entwines itself more closely with 
her actions. Vanity is a proteus-like monster that 
changes, and that too with amazing rapidity, so as to 
delude even the wary and the experienced eye. It 
may manifest itself as distinctly in the playing of a 
sacred anthem, as in dancing the gay and light qua- 
drille; it is not the outward action merely, it is the 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 193 

heart over which our watch and ward must be kept. 
We freely acknowledge, that where there is the 
organ of ideality in the female head, there is often 
a portion of vanity corresponding to it in the heart. 
The Christian mourns over it, prays against it, 
struggles against it ; often tells herself that she has 
nothing that she has not received ; enquires of her- 
self who made her to differ ; feels the responsibility 
of her talents, whatever they may be ; remembers 
that a day is coming when she will be judged, not 
at the tribunal of man, but at the awful tribunal of 
God ; recollects that her powers were given to her 
not to attract the notice and admiration of her fel- 
low creatures, but to subserve their best interests ; 
that if she misuse them, and act unworthy of her 
high vocation, she is ten thousand times more blame- 
worthy than a man who, on a wintry night, should 
see some poor creatures perishing in the snow with 
cold and hunger, and who should spend the money 
that might have procured them necessaries, in play- 
ing off fire-works for their amusement — the Chris- 
tian woman knows all this, and far more than this ; 
and yet still that wicked vanity starts up, grinning 
in malignant triumph, and she finds, after her best 
efforts, that she has only notched the hydra's head, 



194 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

instead of taking away the monster's life. Those who 
blame and condemn her, do not see her inward 
trials ; her secret and earnest prayers. The enemy 
in the camp may, in an unguarded moment, have 
slipped his chain, and given public evidence of his 
tremendous power, but those who are so ready with 
the gibe and the sneer, do not know how the heart 
is silently mourning in secret before its God, and 
petitioning for strength and grace to be more watch- 
ful for the future. And women who stand sheltered 
in the sweet retirement of domestic life, over whose 
names public praise and public censure have never 
been breathed, cannot at all understand how trying 
it is to female vanity to have a little, ever so little 
of the former intoxicating ingredient. Woman is 
but woman ; what marvel if, under such circum- 
stances, her heart should be sometimes sick, and 
her head sometimes giddy ? It has been, more than 
once, our lot to hear censorious remarks, from 
female lips, on the vanity of one, who was an or- 
nament to her country and her sex, Mrs. Hannah 
More ; and these remarks always seemed very much 
like the cackling of geese against the stately 
and magnificent swan. How could these fair cen- 
surers form a true estimate of the dangers which 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 195 

beset Mrs. More's path, in the battery of praise to 
which she was exposed ? We do not say that she 
stood the fire unscathed and uninjured ; she would 
have been more or less than human if she had ; but 
certainly, the good sense which characterizes her 
writings, was in no respect more evident, than in her 
being able to withstand, with so little injury, this 
fiery trial. Let those who so freely censure her, 
look more closely ; let them read her letter to her 
friend Mr. Wilberforce, in which she speaks of her 
frequent perusal of his chapter on the desire of 
worldly applause, in the ' Practical View ; ' let 
them listen to the mournings of the aged saint 
over this fatal sin, in her • Practical Piety; ' and then 
let them raise the sibilant note of disapprobation if 
they can. 

Literary women are indeed exposed to great 
snares — beset by them on every hand. Closely 
connected with vanity, is the habit of writing, and 
even thinking for effect. We are betraying, it may 
be, ' the secrets of the prison-house,' but so it is. 
When a scriptural truth stands forcibly before the 
mind of one who habitually writes for the press, in- 
stead of pressing it upon her own heart, meditating 
on it for her own edification, and feeling the fruit 
o 2 



196 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

sweet to her own taste, she is too apt, as a kind of 
public cateress, (let the homely metaphor he for- 
given,) to think how it may most advantageously he 
dressed up for puhlic benefit. In this situation, she 
is indeed, to borrow the similitude of the Roman 
poet, like the birds which build not for themselves, 
and like the bees which procure honey for others. 
We do not mean that it is necessarily and inevitably 
so, but there is a strong temptation. And of what use 
will it be, to assist in preparing a banquet for others, 
at which they may be refreshed and strengthened, if 
our own souls are withering and languishing in the 
midst of rich abundance ? Not that this can last, for 
to ensure continued Christian usefulness, constant 
supplies of grace are required; and, if we neglect 
to draw from the fountain, we shall be found either 
gasping on the ground, unfit for further exertion, or 
drawing supplies from other sources, and entering, 
it may be imperceptibly, into the service of the 
world. 

There are other dangers ; such as knowing beyond 
what we feel ; employing the mind rather than the 
heart ; delighting in intellectual rather than in spi- 
ritual enjoyment ; and there is the self-deception 
that our intellectual enjoyments are spiritual ones. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 197 

The head may he very full, and the tongue very 
ready, when all the while, the heart may have very 
little to do with the solemn truths which we are 
discussing. 

Then there is such a thing as making a false es- 
timate of our characters and labours. It is not what 
we are in the sight of men. St. Paul teaches us 
that ; " With me it is a very small thing to be judged 
of you or of man's judgment, yea, I judge not my 
own self." It is not what we are in conversation ; 
it is so easy for a woman of superior power to sparkle 
and shine in society ; while those who listen to her 
and converse with her, mistake the play of imagina- 
tion for the influences of the Holy Spirit, and deem 
that they are rejoicing in her graces, while they are 
only admiring her gifts. It is not what we are upon 
paper — minds of a certain order will work, and 
when Christian truth is once perceived, even in the 
lowest degree, its ramifications are so extensive, and 
its power so influential, that a little , very little real 
Christianity, may like solid gold, be beaten out so as 
to cover an immense number of pages. O it is easy 
to talk and it is easy to write, but the difficulty, the 
real difficulty, is to have the heart right before God, 
to walk with God, to live in close communion with 



198 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

him, and in the secrecy of the private chamber, in 
the depths of the bosom, to keep alive, by constant 
supplies of "fresh oil," the living, glowing flame 
of prayer and praise. If there be any one class 
of persons, who require peculiarly to reside in the 
atmosphere of prayer, it is Christian authors. The 
scriptural injunctions, so strong and so forcible, to 
" watch unto prayer," to " watch and pray," to 
" pray alway and not faint," to " pray without 
ceasing, and in every thing to give thanks," should 
be their motto and their watchword. 

Few things in literary history are more beautiful 
than an incident in the early life of the late lament- 
ed Bishop Heber. When his poem of ' Palestine' 
was crowned with the university laurel, he shrunk 
away, as soon as possible, from the congratulations 
of admiring friends, and was discovered shortly 
after by an intimate friend, on his knees, in his own 
private apartment. He might be offering up thanks 
to the gracious Giver of all good, for the talent 
now publicly acknowledged ; or he might be asking 
for grace to devote that talent simply and entirely 
to his service ; or he might be entreating for humi- 
lity and sobriety of mind, under the bewildering 
eulogiums that were bestowed on his powers. We 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 199 

know not, and we cannot know, but in the bright 
career of Bishop Heber, the mind reverts with 
peculiar feelings of interest to the moment when 
the youthful poet remembered his Creator, in the 
first flush of a highly intoxicating success. 

It may seem as if our subject were exhausted, 
by our venturing to take an illustration from the 
opposite sex, but not so. It appears only as if we 
had been walking in a spacious garden, and peeping 
down a number of alleys, without really entering 
them, so that we have a kind of general idea of 
their beauties, with a consciousness that there are 
fruits and flowers which would reward a patient and 
lengthened examination. That patient and length- 
ened examination it is not in our power to bestow ; 
though it may be that one or two wickets have 
been opened, and the ground broken up for fur- 
ther observation. 

It is time to take leave of our pleasant task, 
executed, as perhaps the work itself too evidently 
shews, with great rapidity. Yet though, from cir- 
cumstances, this was inevitable, the writer would 
not be understood as venturing to offer to the pub- 
lic, crude and ill-digested notions. The subject of 
this volume has been with her a favourite subject 



200 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

for meditation, during those intervals, (in a busv 
and active life, few and short as angels' visits,) 
when the mind, disengaged from the pressure of 
immediate duties, seeks and requires something 
beyond their sphere, in which the faculties may be 
exercised, so as to return to common life, invigo- 
rated by the brief but total change. The resources 
of previously acquired knowledge have been brought 
to bear upon the enquiry, and a short respite 
from more important labours having been granted 
to her, she has gladly availed herself of the oppor- 
tunity to embody her ideas in words, and give them 
existence on paper. She has sometimes feared that 
the very selection of the subject may be thought 
presumptuous, but let it be remembered, that she 
has been merely discussing general principles, and 
in pursuing the enquiry, she has been reminded 
of the apology of a very celebrated Italian author, 
for a famous political treatise. " Let it not be 
thought presumptuous," he said in his dedicatory 
epistle, " if a man of low and meau estate presume 
to discuss and regulate the government of princes ; 
for just as those who take plans of countries, place 
themselves on the plain in order to consider the na- 
ture of mountains and hills, and as they ascend 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 201 

hills, in order to have a good view of valleys and 
plains ; so in like manner to know well the nature 
of the people, it is necessary to be a prince, and to 
know that of princes, it is needful to be one of the 
people." The passage is quoted ; the reader will 
make the application. 

Such as it is, this little work is completed. The 
wish has been to take a fair estimate of the mental 
endowments of the feebler sex ; to point out the 
subjects on which their powers may be employed 
with advantage, and those from which they would 
do well to stand aloof ; to plead the cause of gifted 
women with society, so severe in censuring those who 
appear to depart from its beaten path ; and in closing 
the subject, some friendly admonitions have been 
offered, on the dangers that beset the female writer. 
Imperfections many and great are to be detected 
in the execution of the plan ; but the subject itself 
is deserving of the attention of every lady, espe- 
cially at the present day, when, as in a sinking- 
vessel, all hands, male and female, are required to 
be at work, and when no one has a right to stand, 
with folded arms, in listless and indolent indiffer- 
ence. A true estimate of our own powers, is a great 
step towards humility ; and humility in man and 



202 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

woman consists, let it be observed, in taking our 
real place, and it is much more difficult to be con- 
tent with that, and quietly to acknowledge that it 
belongs to us, than voluntarily and ostentatiously 
to pretend to take a degree below it. In the latter 
movement, there is often a great deal of ill-dis- 
guised pride. Then again, a knowledge of the 
fields in which female talent may be most success- 
fully exercised, will give that humble confidence 
which is absolutely necessary for the full develop- 
ment of mental power. Something might have 
been said of the delicate tact and good sense which 
woman often evinces in criticism ; of her powers 
of minute observation, especially as it regards social 
and domestic life, in foreign travel ; but it was im- 
possible to discuss every thing, and it would have 
been absurd to make the attempt. 

Perhaps the pleadings, in behalf of more consi- 
deration for the peculiarly trying position of highly 
endowed women, may not be altogether fruitless ; 
they may turn away one calumnious shaft which 
perhaps is adjusted to the string, and ready to take 
effect on the heart of some poor trembling victim, or 
they may lead to the extension of more kindness and 
sympathy towards those who stand pre-eminently in 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 203 

need of these aids, but who are often deprived of 
them from the presumption, that they can easily dis- 
pense with human friendship and human assistance. 
And if the words of affectionate counsel, on the 
moral and religious dangers that beset a female 
author's path, lead one, even one individual to 
greater watchfulness and to more earnest prayer, the 
writer will rejoice, that under the providence of 
God, her attention was directed to the consideration 
of the proper sphere, and peculiar position of Fe- 
male Writers. 



the end. 



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